West Bengal School Jobs: SSC fails to publish ‘deserving’ list, teachers on indefinite sit-in

KOLKATA: Around 2,000 agitating teachers decided to launch an indefinite sit-in outside the West Bengal School Service Commission headquarters on Monday night, after it failed to release, by the 6 pm deadline, the list of 2016 SSC qualifiers whose jobs were annulled by the Supreme Court. Asserting that they have run out of patience, the protesters clashed with the police and tried to breach barricades to lay siege to the SSC office, after news trickled in that the commission considers only the first three of the 12 rounds of counselling held for the now-invalidated teachers as valid, implying names of teachers recruited from the fourth round would not feature in the list of “deserving” candidates.

SSC Chairman Siddhartha Majumdar, in a late-night statement, said the commission will abide by the apex court directives and ensure “the (jobless) teachers having rendered services will be given salary". Besides putting up a gherao to stop Majumdar and other staff from leaving the building, the agitating teachers also surrounded the adjacent Derozio Bhavan, the office of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, to prevent board president Ramanuj Ganguly from leaving office. A 13-member delegation the agitating teachers held a meeting with Majumdar, which continued for several hours since 4.30 pm.

Making no mention about posting the list of all “tainted/untainted” candidates as per the April 21 deadline, Majumdar said in the statement: "In respect of the matter of recruitment of teachers in 2016, it is made clear that SSC will abide by the orders of the Hon'ble Supreme Court." "It is informed by the department that the salary of teachers who have rendered services will be disbursed according to existing system," he said.

West Bengal teachers' demands

The protesters earlier marched from Karunamoyee Central Park to Acharya Sadan — the WBSSC headquarters at Wipro Crossing — before launching an indefinite sit-in, reiterating their demand that the promised list must be published by the stated deadline of 6 pm. The agitating teachers also demanded the resignation of the SSC chairman and state Education Minister Bratya Basu.

The West Bengal Junior Doctors Front, which had been at the forefront of the movement to demand justice for the RG Kar hospital rape and murder victim in 2024, pledged solidarity with the protesting teachers. The Supreme Court, in its April 3 verdict, had declared the entire 2016 recruitment panel created by the SSC as null and void, citing widespread irregularities. The ruling led to the termination of around 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff from state-run and state-aided schools across West Bengal.