Confused Sacked Teachers Urge SSC for 'Tainted' Candidates' List

SNS, KOLKATA, 24 APRIL 2025 : A day after allowing the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) chairman Siddhartha Majumder and his other colleagues to leave office on Wednesday, the agitating sacked teachers are still confused with the WBSSC's reluctance to make the list of 'tainted' candidates public through its official website.

Mr. Majumder, whom the protesters had besieged since Monday, was scheduled to appear before the Calcutta High Court (HC) on Wednesday in connection with a hearing related to the presentation of OMR sheets of the 2016 recruitment test. The HC heard a contempt petition against the West Bengal school education department, claiming that it has not uploaded OMR sheets of 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff who lost their jobs following a Supreme Court (SC) judgment. The HC wanted to know about the steps the state government had taken in connection with refunding the salary of the identified ineligible teachers. The apex court had directed the identified ineligible teachers to refund their salary.

A section of jobless teachers, who still stick to their decision to continue a sit-in protest in front of the Acharya Sadan on Thursday, have urged the commission to release the list of ineligible candidates to make it clear that they can't go to their respective schools.

The state education department has sent lists of 15,403 untainted teachers who can go to their respective schools and get salaries until December 31 to the offices of district inspectors (DI) of schools across the state. Many 'untainted' teachers have already left the sit-in site at Acharya Sadan to join their schools, but many others have decided to continue their protest until the commission releases the list of 'tainted' teachers.

The sacked teachers, headmasters, and headmistresses of many schools feel that the list of 15,403 eligible teachers sent to the DI offices has created more confusion among themselves.

Today, Amit Ranjan Bhuniya, an assistant teacher of a school in South 24-Parganas district, whom a sub-inspector of the Kasba police station had kicked in his abdomen when he was part of the protest in front of the DI office at Kasba, said: “Why doesn't the school service commission publish the list of 'tainted' candidates? We want to know who are not eligible. Who are not allowed to go to schools and get the salary as per the Supreme Court directive?”

Chinmoy Mondal, one of the prominent faces who has been leading the protest of aggrieved jobless teachers in front of the Acharya Sadan office of the WBSSC, said: “I could not find my name in the list of 'untainted' teachers sent to the DI offices. It’s because of some mistakes made by the WBSSC. I have spoken to the commission chairman and he has asked for 24 hours to correct the mistakes. It's not desirable from the commission. Many others who are 'untainted' like me could not also find their names in the list.”

There has been a sharp split in the sit-in movement since the education department sent the list of untainted teachers to the DIs. 'Tainted' candidates launched a sit-in movement from today, hardly 100 meters away from the original site in front of the Acharya Sadan building, after their names were struck off from the list of the 'untainted' candidates.

The agitating 'tainted' candidates alleged that their names had been deleted from the list due to some discrepancies in the OMR sheets. Today, they got involved in a heated exchange with their 'untainted' counterparts this evening at the Acharya Sadan venue.