Mamata Seeks Legal Route to Reassign ‘Tainted’ SSC Teachers in Bengal

Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, announced on Thursday that her government was looking into legal possibilities to assign "tainted" 2016 SSC exam teachers to non-teaching positions.

Speaking at a Teachers' Day celebration here, she added that the state government has started hiring "untainted" applicants from the 2016 school teacher recruitment exam, according to PTI.

"I am consulting legal experts on options of appointing 'tainted' teachers to non-teaching posts. For those who have been teaching for years now, but have been marked 'ineligible', I am trying to seek a legal solution whether they could be recruited in Group C or D posts," Banerjee said.

"We look at things not through a political prism, but from a human perspective," she said during the event at state-run 'Dhana Dhanya' auditorium.

The list of 1,806 "tainted" applicants was made public last week by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).

The Supreme Court declared the hiring process "vitiated and tainted" in April and ordered the dismissal of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching employees from state-run and state-aided schools.

Later, the Supreme Court changed its ruling to permit "untainted" teachers to continue working and receiving pay through December 31.

"We still have 56,000 vacancies in teaching posts. Of this, advertisements have been published for 35,726 posts, and around 21,000 vacancies are still pending. Many times we want to do something, but there are legal hindrances because of few people. I will not blame the court, though. Some people go to court to stall everything, and then people's futures are ruined," she said.

"The process for recruitment of 'untainted' teaching candidates has already started and will end in 2-3 months. We have given priority to teachers with 10-12 years of experience. Whatever we can do to help," the CM said.

She said as far as Groups C and D are concerned, the court has already said they can work elsewhere.

"We will conduct the exams for Groups C and D later. I will ask the chief secretary to deal with it legally," she added.

According to PTI, Banerjee gave an explanation for why the teachers' day program was held on September 5, the eve of Radhakrishnan's birth anniversary, in an attempt to poke fun at the BJP government at the center.

"We are commemorating the event now because tomorrow is a holiday due to the anniversary of Prophet Mohammed's birth. We have a holiday in Bengal, but I'm not sure if the Centre has declared one," she remarked, omitting to mention the BJP-led administration.

Regarding "Bengali Asmita," Banerjee stated that social reformers and luminaries such as Iswarchandra Vidyasagar and Rammohan Roy were the first to stop social evils like Sati and Bidhaba Bibaha (marrying a widow and burning a woman after her husband dies) in the 19th century. This practice was later embraced at the national level.

"From social reformers to stalwarts like Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who penned our national anthem and national song, respectively, it has been Bengal which showed the path to the country. We will always take pride for this fact and boast about our Bengali Asmita," she said.

PTI reported that she asked students to "learn other languages, including English. I have no issues with that. But do not forget your identity, your mother tongue and your motherland." She also called upon the students to not believe everything which comes up on social media.

"Think by yourself. Remember many of the stuff on social media is nothing but fake news," she said.

"The Bill for setting up another five is still pending with the governor, although we have passed it," she claimed, claiming that her government had established 47 universities in Bengal since taking office, compared to 12 under the previous administration. 

According to the CM, the general quota has not been reduced by the 17 per cent scholarship quota for the OBC group.  "This is extra to ensure there are no problems with the overall quota.  For this, we have the Medhashree scheme," she stated, adding that the Vivekananda Merit-cum-Means Scholarship has been awarded to 36.55 lakh students.

According to Banerjee, the dropout rate is currently 3 per cent at the higher education level and zero per cent in Bengal.

"For minorities, there are different scholarships and to date, 4.56 lakh students have benefited from this. We spent Rs 9,747 crore for this, entirely borne by the state government. We also provided Rs 316 crore as education loans to 40,000 students," she added.