3 min readKolkataApr 28, 2025 09:35 PM IST
First published on: Apr 28, 2025 at 09:35 PM IST
Both teaching and non-teaching staff — who claimed they were wrongly excluded from the West Bengal School Service Commission’s list of “untainted” staff members — protested at the Hazra crossing, 500 metres away from the Chief Minister’s residence on Monday.
The protests come after SSC sent a list of “untainted” teachers to the School Education department, which was then forwarded to the District Inspectors of Schools for verification in order to disburse salaries. The protestors, who were teachers of class IX, X, XI, and XII, claimed they were excluded from this “untainted” list.
On April 3, a Supreme Court order canceled the entire 2016 SSC recruitment panel which led to the loss of jobs of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff of state-aided schools.
The protestors wanted to submit a deputation to the Chief Minister, demanding their names be sent to all the District Inspector offices by the School Education Department, appropriate measures be taken to ensure their salaries are deposited, and that they are identified as “untainted”. They alleged the current data on the list to be “inadmissible” and “inauthentic”.
Last week, a group of teachers had protested close to state Education Minister Bratya Basu’s residence, but since he was not available, the teachers decided to seek an appointment with the CM.
One of the protesting teachers, Sejothi Bhattacharya, told mediapersons, “This state government is everyone’s government. We just want them to be a bit considerate of us, look at us in a humanitarian manner — as nowhere, be it a lower court or a higher court, nowhere has any negative observation been made about us. But due to one decision, our professional and personal life is getting affected. Just one term is maligning our image. We all have our educational qualifications. So we would like our Education Minister and Chief Minister to look into our matter.”
Another protesting teacher, Tina Das, said, “The Chief Minister had asked us to go back to work but how can we go back when we are being falsely maligned? We just want to go back to work and teach the children. We demand to know what happened that the SSC sent names of around 15,000 candidates out of the 17,000 (teachers to the School Education department). The students will suffer the most, especially those appearing for class 10 and 12 board exams next year as the syllabus will not be complete. Who will be responsible for that?”
On Saturday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced interim financial relief for the protesting non-teaching staff on “humanitarian and compassionate grounds”.
She had further said that the state government would file a review petition for both the affected staff and the teachers.
When the Supreme Court in its order had allowed “untainted” teachers to continue services till December 31, no such relief had been extended to the Group C and D non-teaching staff.
The protestors, who were teachers of class IX, X, XI, and XII, claimed they were excluded from this "untainted" list. (Express Photo by Partha Paul) 
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