Braving bitter and windy cold and inclement weather the retrenched 10,323 teachers who never really lost their jobs by court order but were subjected to ‘illegal termination‘ have appealed to the chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and minister for education Ratan Lal Nath to shun their intransigence and deal with their problem in a humane way. The retrenched teachers, victims of the worst possible miscarriage of justice in independent India from the executive as well as the judiciary, have been in a sit-in agitation over the past forty five days demanding reemployment , as promised by the chief minister and cleared by the judiciary but have so far received no positive response from the state government.
Speaking to media persons in their sit-in platform yesterday the leaders of the Joint Movement Committee (JMC) spearheading the movement said that the chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb as well as the minister for education Ratan Lal Nath should give up their obstinacy and become ‘humane’ in coming forward to resolve their problem. They said that by all yardsticks it has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the courts did not dispense with the services of all teachers but those of only a few whose appointments had been challenged on ground of employment policy. But nevertheless the complete misinterpretation of the orders by bureaucrats of the government had led to the dismissal en masse of all the teachers. But then in response to the state government’s affidavit that the retrenched teachers would be accommodated in posts of classes III and IV employees the supreme court cleared this as ‘solace’ but now the education minister is insisting on interviews with the obvious purpose of picking and choosing and denying recruitment at a time. “This is the worst situation for us because we have been let down by all ; even after reposing faith in the present government we face a stone wall ; now it is up to the state government ; it is our good fortune that the people of the state have been supporting us daily by helping in cash or kind; we will carry on our sit-in strike until our demands are met” said the leaders of the movement.
