West Bengal School Service Commission holds talks with ‘sacked' teachers
The delegation belonged to the Jogyo Shikkhok Shikkhika Adhikar Mancha (JSSAM). No conclusion was reached at the meeting by the time of this report being published.
Hundreds of 'untainted' teachers, who lost their jobs after an April 3 Supreme Court order invalidating nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching jobs, gathered at Karunamoyee in Bidhannagar on Thursday and marched to the WBSSC office. They raised slogans demanding their jobs be reinstated, as about hundred-odd police personnel stood guard around and inside the office premises.
The 'untainted' teachers underlined four crucial demands. These include publishing their original OMR sheets and a list of 'untainted' candidates from the cancelled 2016 recruitment panel certified by the WBSSC.
Additionally, they have demanded that the new recruitment process be kept on hold till the review petition is heard by the apex court, and for their jobs to be kept intact through a 'repanelling' process where the original OMR sheets from 2016 are re-evaluated for a new merit list without tainted candidates.
The situation arose after the Supreme Court cancelled the entirety of the recruitment panel of 2016, citing a 'vitiated and tainted' hiring by the WBSSC. The apex court consequently directed the West Bengal government to complete a fresh recruitment process for assistant teachers' positions by December 31, till when the 'sacked' teachers have been allowed to work with full salaries.
'While it is true that the State and the WBSSC filed review petitions at the Supreme Court, the deadline for the online application for fresh recruitments is before the apex court reopens after summer recess. This has been done by design to put pressure on us. We will not appear for a reselection, and especially not before the review petition yields a result,' a protesting 'untainted and sacked' teacher, Suvojit Das, told The Hindu.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hans India
15 minutes ago
- Hans India
Cash row: CJI Gavai likely to recuse from hearing Justice Varma's plea, assures urgent hearing
The Supreme Court on Wednesday hinted that the Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R. Gavai-led Bench will not likely take up for hearing the plea filed by Justice Yashwant Varma challenging his indictment by the three-member in-house committee in the cash-discovery episode. This unfolded when senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Justice Varma, urged CJI Gavai to constitute a Bench for urgent hearing of the matter. At this, CJI Gavai said, 'I think that it may not be proper for me to pick up that matter because I was part of the conversation'. However, the CJI assured Sibal that a Bench will be constituted to hear the plea filed by Justice Varma. 'We will just take a call and constitute a Bench,' said CJI Gavai. The writ petition filed by Justice Varma sought to quash the communication forwarded by then CJI Sanjiv Khanna to the President and then Prime Minister to take action against Justice Varma. As per the petition, the in-house panel acted in a 'pre-determined manner' and denied Justice Varma a fair opportunity to defend himself. On Monday, 145 MPs from both the ruling and Opposition parties submitted an impeachment notice against Justice Varma to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Justice Varma has been in the eye of a storm since the March 14 discovery of the burnt cash in an outhouse of his official residence allotted to him while serving in the Delhi High Court. Following the cash-discovery row, which sent shockwaves across the judicial corridors, Justice Varma was repatriated to the Allahabad High Court, and an in-house probe was set up to probe the allegations. According to the probe committee, both direct and electronic evidence confirmed that the storeroom was under the covert or active control of Justice Varma and his family. By way of strong inferential evidence, the in-house panel said the burnt cash was removed from the storeroom during the early hours of March 15. In conclusion, the three-member inquiry committee, comprising Chief Justice Sheel Nagu of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, CJ G.S. Sandhawalia of the Himachal Pradesh HC and Karnataka HC's Justice Anu Sivaraman, found the allegations serious enough to merit impeachment proceedings against Justice Varma. It opined that Justice Varma's misconduct was not only proven but also grave enough to warrant his removal under Article 124(4) of the Constitution.
New Indian Express
43 minutes ago
- New Indian Express
CCTV cameras: AP HC orders inspection of police stations
VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court has appointed Advocate MRK Chakravarthy as an Advocate Commissioner to inspect the installation and verify functionality of CCTV cameras in police stations in the State. This follows a certification by DSPs claiming that all police stations are equipped with CCTV cameras covering their entire premises as per the Supreme Court directives. The court, expressing doubts about the claims, ordered a field-level inspection to ascertain the facts. The division bench, comprising Justices R Raghunandan Rao and Jagadam Sumathi, directed the Advocate Commissioner to visit six police stations specified by the petitioner, and submit a detailed report. The report must address key questions, including the number of CCTV cameras installed, whether they are operational, whether footage is stored in storage devices, and whether the cameras cover the entire station premises. The court emphasised that the inspection should ensure compliance with Supreme Court directives. The court further instructed SPs, Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners, DSPs, and SDPOs of the concerned districts to provide full cooperation to the Advocate Commissioner during the inspection. Additionally, the State government was directed to pay Rs 50,000 to cover the Commissioner's expenses. The next hearing was scheduled for August 12, 2025.
India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
West Bengal School Service Commission gets 5.9 lakh teacher applications
The West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) has received an overwhelming response to its latest recruitment drive, with close to 5.9 lakh candidates applying for assistant teacher posts in state-run and state-aided secondary and higher secondary schools.'This year, between 5.8 and 5.9 lakh applications have come in for assistant teacher positions,' confirmed WBSSC Chairman Siddhartha numbers are almost double compared to the 2016 recruitment cycle, which had seen around 3.16 lakh applications, 1.41 lakh for Classes 9 and 10, and 1.75 lakh for Classes 11 and The surge in applications comes after a Supreme Court order in April this year directed the state government and WBSSC to restart the hiring process following the cancellation of over 25,000 appointments made in 2016. These appointments were deemed invalid after the court flagged irregularities in the earlier recruitment process. The apex court asked the commission to complete the new recruitment drive by December 31, line with the court's directive, the WBSSC launched the online application portal on June 16, with the registration window closing on July 21. The recruitment will fill a total with 35,726 teaching vacancies across West Bengal's secondary and higher secondary some backlash from a section of former teachers who lost their jobs due to the court verdict and had initially said they would boycott the new exams, the response has been robust. Many teachers who were not found guilty of any wrongdoing in the 2016 appointments have to WBSSC officials, around 13,000 of the 15,403 teachers who were cleared of any misconduct and allowed to continue temporarily until fresh recruitment have now applied again through the ongoing process. These teachers are set to appear for the upcoming State Level Selection Test (SLST).The Calcutta High Court had earlier greenlit the fresh recruitment process, endorsing the stricter, student-centric rules introduced this time the application phase now over, all eyes are on SLST and how the commission executes the next steps in this high-stakes hiring process.(With PTI inputs)- EndsMust Watch
