WBSSC job case: 'Untainted' teachers approach Calcutta HC accusing Bengal Police of harassing them defying court order

Kolkata, July 5 (IANS) A section of the "untainted" teachers in state-run schools across West Bengal, who lost their jobs following a Supreme Court order cancelling 25,753 teaching and non-teaching jobs in April this year, on Friday, approached a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court, accusing the state police of unnecessarily harassing them defying apex court's order for failing to do so.

The "untainted" teachers had been on a sit-in-demonstration for more than a month near the office of the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) at Salt Lake on the northern outskirts in Kolkata.

Earlier, acting on a case registered against the "untainted" teachers protesting by the Bidhannagar City Police accusing them of ransacking the WBSSC office early this year, the Calcutta High Court has instructed that no coercive action could be adopted by the policemen against the protesting teachers till further court orders in the matter.

However, on Friday, the counsel of two such "untainted" protesting teachers, namely Chinmay Mondal and Sangeeta Ghosh, sought the attention of Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh, accusing that even the clear instructions from the court in the matter, Bidhannagar City Police had been serving them notices one after another for defying the court's instruction.

Justice Ghosh observed that those "untainted" protesting teachers, who had been served with such notices, could appeal for their cancellation either by filing individual petitions or jointly through their counsel.

On Friday, the counsel of Chinmay Mondal and Sangeeta Ghosh also requested the court to scrap the main FIR registered against the "untainted" protesting teachers, accusing them of ransacking the WBSSC office.

However, Justice Ghosh told the counsel that any hearing in the matter will be heard by his bench only after a proper plea for a hearing in the matter is made by serving notices to all parties.

Meanwhile, the "Jogyo Shikshak-Shikshika Adhikar Mancha" (Genuine Teachers' Rights Forum), the banner under which the protest movements are being organised said on Friday that they would organise a "March to the State Secretariat of Nabanna," on July 14 in the matter.

On April 3, a Supreme Court bench comprising then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar upheld a previous order of the Calcutta High Court that annulled 25,753 school appointments made through the WBSSC.

The apex court observed that the panel had to be scrapped entirely due to the authorities' failure to distinguish between "tainted" and "untainted" candidates.

The state government and the WBSSC have since filed review petitions in the Supreme Court seeking reconsideration of the order.

--IANS

src/khz