Protesting teachers to hold meeting with Bengal education department officials on Monday

Kolkata: A six-member delegation of agitating teachers, who have lost their jobs following a recent Supreme Court order, will meet West Bengal education department officials on Monday to find a solution to the impasse, one of the protesters said.

State Education Minister Bratya Basu is unlikely to attend the meeting, officials said.

The members of the Deserving Teachers' Rights Forum will meet the officials at Bikash Bhavan, the headquarters of the education department, in Salt Lake area, after the government decided to initiate talks with them, a protester said.

Senior education department officials will hold a discussion with the protesting teachers around 1 pm, he said.

The protesting teachers have been staging a sit-in for several days near Bikash Bhavan, demanding that they be reinstated in their jobs. They also refused to take part in a fresh recruitment exam as mandated by the top court.

"We have been demanding that the deserving teachers be reinstated in their jobs. We are also requesting the government to take steps so that we do not have to write a fresh exam. We will try to understand the government's position on the fresh recruitment exam notification, which, as per the court's directive, must be issued by May 31," a protesting teacher said ahead of the meeting.

Another protester said, "We are also exploring all legal options to retain our jobs." Basu had on Sunday urged the agitators to repose faith in the government, assuring them that all legal steps were being explored to find a solution to the impasse.

He reiterated that "untainted" teachers, who lost their jobs due to procedural lapses in the 2016 recruitment process, would continue to receive salaries and remain in service until the fresh recruitment process concludes by December 31.

He also appealed to the agitators not to fall prey to political motives.

"A section of these teachers have already resumed work and are cooperating with the state. We remain sympathetic to all affected and are trying to find a way out," Basu had said on the sidelines of an event on Sunday.

A section of the forum members had also interacted with BJP MP and former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who blamed the state government and the School Service Commission for the current situation.

"These deserving teachers are suffering due to no fault of theirs. The state must take responsibility for the flawed process," Gangopadhyay said.

Following a Calcutta High Court directive on Friday, the protesters had begun shifting their sit-in site to a designated area in Central Park in Salt Lake so that traffic movement is not disrupted.

The appointments of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff of state-aided schools were invalidated by the Supreme Court, which termed the recruitment process “vitiated and tainted”.

The area around Bikash Bhavan turned into a virtual battlefield on May 15 evening during the violent clashes between the protesting school teachers and the police.

Many teachers, including several women, were injured in police action, which persisted for over an hour, eyewitnesses said.

Despite repeated pleas to the teachers to allow stranded employees of the education department to return home, the protesters continued their agitation, the police had said.