Agartala: In a historic judgement, a division bench of Tripura High Court, comprising Chief Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice S C Das, on Wednesday cancelled the jobs of 9923 teachers in different government schools.
Announcing the judgement of 58 different cases of similar nature, the court directed the state government to start a fresh process of appointment of teachers under independent commission with fair selection criteria.
The court also issued a detailed guideline for recruitment of teachers in the government school.
The cancelled jobs included those of 4217 post graduate teachers, 1100 graduate teachers and 4606 under-graduate teachers who had been appointed in three different phases since 2010.
The deprived job aspirants had filed as many as 79 petitions with thousands of signatories before the court alleging nepotism in the appointment of teachers and corruption in the selection process.
One of the counsels of the petitioners Arijit Bhowmik told the media that the Left Front government had adopted ‘unfair means’ in the recruitment of teachers despite oppositions from several corners.
He said the court had allowed the government to continue classes with the existing teachers till December 31, 2014 and by that time the state government had been asked to start process of fresh appointment of teachers under an independent body with written test by following the guidelines.
“Depriving thousands of eligible and meritorious aspirants, the government appointed under-qualified and unqualified party cadres over the years but the high court has given them justice and put to an end to such corruption,” he stated.
The court observed that the revised employment policy appeared to be beyond the constitutional limits and commented: “The way the government had selected candidates was totally unconstitutional”.
However, officials in state education department said they will challenge the judgment in the Supreme Court considering the future of thousands of families.
Meanwhile, School Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty stated after studying the court order the government will decide the next course of action.
The petitioners had accused the state government of violating Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 in recruitment of Under Graduate Teachers (UGT) in 7000 odd schools early this year. (UNI)