Bengal: Sacked school teachers protest outside WBSSC office, demand release of 'segregated' list

Kolkata, April 21 (IANS) School teachers, who were sacked following an order of the Supreme Court, have staged a protest outside the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) in Kolkata on Monday, while demanding the immediate release of 'segregated' list.

The state government and WBSSC had earlier this month promised the genuine candidates that the "segregated" list would be published by the commission by April 21 but as per the legal advice.

Accordingly, the "genuine" candidates started assembling in groups from the commission's office in Salt Lake on Monday afternoon waiting for the publication of the segregated list.

However, tension started mounting in front of the office from 7 p.m. onwards as there was no indication of a segregated list being made public by the commission.

The "genuine" candidates started protesting and raising slogans against the state government.

Thereafter, information surfaced from inside the WBSSC office, that the list finalised in only three of a total of 12 counselling sessions for the WBSSC panel for 2016 will be published.

The protesting teachers got irked over the information and they started protesting vehemently and tried to enter the commission's office by breaking through the barricades raised by police.

This led to a scuffle between the protesters and policemen.

Some of the protestors, including some women, had reportedly fallen sick, following the scuffle.

Thereafter, the protesters started a sit-in protest in front of the WBSSC office blocking all the entry and exit gates.

They said that they will continue with their protest indefinitely and till the time, the segregated list for all the counselling sessions for the 2016 panel is made public by the commission.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court division bench of the Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar upheld the order of the Calcutta High Court's division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Shabbar Rashidi last year cancelling WBSSC's entire panel for 2016 of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching job.

The apex court also accepted the observation of the Calcutta High Court that the entire panel had to be cancelled because of the failure on part of the state government and WBSSC to segregate the "genuine" candidates from the "tainted" ones, who got jobs paying money.

Thereafter, at a meeting of a delegation of "genuine" candidates with the State Education Minister Bratya Basu, the state government assured the publication of the "segregate" list but as per the legal advice by April 21.

--IANS

src/khz