25,000 Bengal Teachers To Lose Jobs As Court Acts On Illegal Appointments

In a big setback to Mamata Banerjee government, the Calcutta High Court has cancelled the 2016 recruitment process for government-sponsored and aided schools.

As many as 25,753 appointees are set to lose their jobs and return the salaries they have withdrawn since joining with a 12% interest, according to the order.

A division bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi said the school teachers recruited illegally after submitting blank OMR sheets must return their salaries within four weeks.

The district magistrates have been tasked with collecting the money from these teachers.

The state government is likely to challenge the order in the Supreme Court. Several Trinamool leaders and former officials are in jail in connection with the teacher recruitment case.

The Calcutta High Court had last year dismissed panels set up by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSCC) in 2016 and the cancelled appointment of 36,000 untrained primary teachers. The figure was later modified to 32,000.

Abhijit Ganguly, the judge who had passed the order, resigned after several run-ins with the ruling Trinamool and is now a BJP candidate from Tamluk in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

Days later after the initial judgment, another single-judge bench had paused it until further orders.