The Calcutta High Court has terminated the jobs of 36,000 primary teachers recruited in 2014 for violating reservation quotas and not taking a required aptitude test. However, teachers are allowed to remain in their roles for four months with a reduced salary at the rate of para-teachers. Teachers who complete the required training can apply to the new recruitment process.
By A Correspondent in Kolkata
In an unprecedented order that may effect job of thousands of school teachers in West Bengal, the Calcutta High Court on Friday scrapped appointments of as many as 36,000 primary teachers as part of its ongoing hearings on the cash-for-jobs scam in the state.
The Order is perhaps the largest one-time appointment cancellation in the history of Independent India.
The appointments were cancelled on grounds that the teachers lacked the necessary training which was mandatory in the 2014 Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) based on which the candidates were recruited.
Manipulations are also likely to have taken place in the final marks weightage given for appointments to untrained candidates by assigning fictitious marks in aptitude tests that were allegedly never held, the court observed.
The disqualified teachers were recruited by the state Primary Education Board in 2016 and are engaged in jobs since the 2016-17 academic year.
In its bid to pre-empt a possible crisis and utter chaos in primary education across schools in Bengal on account of the sudden creation of such a large vacancy, the court granted a job extension of four months to the disqualified teachers and directed the Board to complete the process of filling up those vacancies within the next three months.
During the course of their extension, the disqualified teachers would only be considered as para-teachers and their remunerations and perks would be fixed as such instead of what they enjoyed as full-time primary teachers, the court directed.
The court, however, retained some 6,500 primary teachers who were also recruited during the same period but who had the necessary training at the time of their appointments. The disqualified teachers were allegedly asked by their recruiting authorities to complete the training within years of joining their services.