WB education min's 'empty promises' mean nothing, say protesting teachers

Three teachers, who have been staging a hunger strike for the last three days demanding that the West Bengal SSC release a list of eligible candidates of the 2016 recruitment examination, on Saturday said "hollow promises" made by Education Minister Bratya Basu meant nothing to them.

Basu had on Friday said the School Service Commission (SSC) was ready to publish the digital mirror image of Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets of all 22 lakh candidates who had appeared in the 2016 exam, after a Supreme Court judgment invalidated the appointment of 26,000 teachers and non-teaching staffers of schools in the state, terming the entire selection process "vitiated and tainted".

The agitating teachers -- Pankaj Roy, Suman Biswas, and Pratap Kumar Saha -- began their indefinite fast before the SSC office at Acharya Bhavan here at 11 am on April 10 calling for immediate demarcation between tainted and untainted candidates whose jobs were invalidated by the apex court on April 3.

Speaking to PTI, Suman Biswas, who was a teacher at Nakashipara High School in Nadia district before he lost his job, said, "The education minister's assurance is nothing but a lollipop. After the Supreme Court's order, such empty promises mean nothing to us. Let the SSC release the list of qualified candidates of the 2016 exams."  "With our backs to the wall, we are not afraid even to die in the interest of transparency in the recruitment process. The meeting between the education minister, the SSC chairman and some job-losing teachers was nothing short of a hoax. We are not going to be misled by any such diversionary tactics to force us to withdraw the fast," he said.

On BJP MP and former Calcutta High Court judge Abhjit Gangopadhyay asking them to carry on with the protests without risking their lives, Biswas said, "I am not afraid even if the hunger strike leads to any eventuality."  Basu's announcement came after protesting teachers and non-teaching staffers, who lost their jobs, held a protest rally and followed it up with a meeting with the minister at Bikash Bhavan, the state education department headquarters in Salt Lake, on Friday.

"Since the matter concerns a judgment of the Supreme Court that we cannot violate, we are seeking legal advice to publish the list of deserving and tainted candidates by putting up the OMR sheets concerned on the SSC website. If there are no legal hurdles, we should be able to complete the task within two weeks," the minister said, while confirming that the prospective deadline for publication is April 21.

The Supreme Court had on April 3 upheld a 2024 Calcutta High Court judgment annulling the recruitment of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staffers appointed through the 2016 SSC recruitment drive, terming the entire selection process "vitiated and tainted".

The SSC had earlier told both the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court that it no longer has the OMR sheets or their digital copies as those were destroyed.