Kolkata, 12 April (H.S.) -Three school teachers in West Bengal, protesting job cancellations after a Supreme Court verdict, have accused Education Minister Bratya Basu of making “empty promises”.
The teachers — Pankaj Roy, Suman Biswas, and Pratap Kumar Saha — began an indefinite hunger strike outside the School Service Commission (SSC) office in Kolkata on April 10. They are demanding a clear list of eligible candidates from the 2016 SSC recruitment exam.
On Friday, Minister Basu announced that digital copies of the OMR sheets of all 22 lakh candidates from the 2016 exam would be uploaded online. He said this would help distinguish between eligible and ineligible candidates, following the Supreme Court’s April 3 ruling that scrapped the appointment of over 25,000 teachers and staff.
But the protesting teachers say they have lost faith in the government’s promises.
“We’ve heard enough. We don’t trust words anymore,” said Suman Biswas, who lost his job at Nakashipara High School in Nadia. “We won’t end our hunger strike unless the list of qualified candidates is made public.”
He called the minister’s assurance “a lollipop”, adding that the recent meeting between the SSC, the minister, and some sacked teachers was “a hoax meant to distract us”.
Basu, in his statement, said the SSC would publish the OMR sheets if there were no legal obstacles. “We are consulting lawyers. If everything goes smoothly, the digital OMR data should be live by April 21.”
The Supreme Court verdict upheld an earlier Calcutta High Court order that cancelled the 2016 SSC recruitments, calling the process vitiated and tainted.
The SSC earlier claimed it no longer had the OMR records. But the court questioned this, saying that loss of such critical data raised serious concerns.
Despite appeals from political leaders, including BJP MP and former judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay, to avoid risking their lives, the teachers remain firm. “Even if it costs us our lives, we are not backing down,” Biswas said.
Hindusthan Samachar / Satya Prakash Singh
