KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday assured full support to eligible candidates who lost school jobs following a Supreme Court order, asserting that her government will ensure they don't remain jobless or have a break in service.
Speaking at a meeting attended by hundreds of people who lost their jobs as teaching and non-teaching staffers at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata, Mamata said, "I will stand by those who have lost their jobs in an unjust manner. I don't care what others think. I will do everything to restore your dignity."
"We have separate plans in place to ensure that the eligible candidates do not face any break in service. We will not allow them to remain jobless," she added
Reiterating that the state government respects the Supreme Court ruling, Banerjee said the administration is taking proactive steps to handle the situation with "utmost care and fairness".
The chief minister also claimed that her name was being dragged into something about which "I have no link", referring to discrepancies in the school job appointments.
"I am ready to even go to jail if anyone wants to penalise me for standing with those who lost school jobs," Banerjee asserted.
"There is a conspiracy to break the entire education system. A dirty game is being played by some people," she said, in an apparent reference to opposition BJP and the CPI(M).
Chaos prevailed outside the stadium as people who had not been issued entry passes also arrived at the venue to attend the programme.
Police officers, present in large numbers, had a tough time pacifying the assembled people who wanted to enter the indoor stadium to be present at the meeting.
Outside the meeting venue, a teaching staff member, Akhtar Ali, said that those who are in the institutions and have committed fraud should be put in jail.
"Why punish us when we have passed the examination, given interviews, and then been selected? Why did such a big fraud happen to us?" he said.
Meanwhile, another teacher hoped that CM Mamata Banerjee would understand their pain.
"We hope that she will understand the pain of us--almost 19,000 untainted people. We lost in the High Court but moved to the Supreme Court with the hope that we would win, but sadly, the judgment was not in our favour. We are trapped in this scam, and we are the collateral damage. We will not appear for the re-examination, and why should we? As per the order, the tainted (employees) have been asked to pay back whatever they have earned as salary with interest in the last six months," she said.
Outside the venue of the meeting, a teacher Yasmin Parveen said that he had hopes from the West Bengal CM.
"We have hopes from the CM. We fulfilled all the procedures to get the job. After being employed for seven years, we are now unemployed. We need nothing but our jobs back," Parveen said.
The apex court had on April 3 invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and staffers in state-run and aided schools in Bengal, calling the entire selection process "vitiated and tainted".
The bench of Chief Justice of India, Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar found that the selection process carried out by the West Bengal SSC was based on large-scale manipulations and fraud.
"In our opinion, this is a case wherein the entire selection process has been vitiated and tainted beyond resolution. Manipulations and frauds on a large scale, coupled with the attempted cover-up, have dented the selection process beyond repair and partial redemption. The credibility and legitimacy of the selection are denuded", the apex court bench stated in its judgement.
The apex court found no reason to interfere with the direction of the High Court that the services of "tainted" candidates must be terminated, and they should be required to refund any salaries or payments received.
"Since their appointments were the result of fraud, this amounts to cheating. Therefore, we see no justification to alter this direction", the bench added.
The top court's verdict came on a petition filed by the West Bengal government that challenged an April 2022 order of the Calcutta High Court which had cancelled the recruitment of more than 25,000 teachers and other staff for state-run and aided schools. The top court had reserved its verdict in the matter on February 10.
Meanwhile, the opposition BJP held a protest demanding Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s resignation.
"Mamata Banerjee should go to jail. She is the main beneficiary. Her nephew took a bribe of Rs 700 crore," said West Bengal LoP Suvendu Adhikari.
