Teachers' protest: Why Mamata govt is in a tight spot

The teachers' protest in West Bengal is intensifying, leaving the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool government in a tight spot. The question is: With elections approaching, how can the government wriggle out of this tricky situation and assuage teachers' concerns?

The teachers refused to call off their protest on Friday even after Education Minister Bratya Basu agreed to meet their two main demands.

Mamata, however, says she has plan A, B, C, D and even E ready. Notwithstanding the brave front the chief minister put up, the state government has limited options to resolve the mess created by the irregularities in the 2016 SSC recruitment process.

So what are the options?

The first option is to file a review petition to reverse the judgment. The government is already in the legal consultation process for the review petition. But that does not look easy.

“We are told by legal experts that unless the government can come out with substantial evidence to support its plea for review, the court might not even admit the petition,” Moumita Sarkar, a protesting teacher, told The Federal.

Marathon meeting

On Friday, minister Basu gave many assurances in the marathon meeting with a 13-member delegation of teaching and non-teaching staff whose appointments were cancelled following a Supreme Court verdict on April 3. But teachers are not relenting.

Also Read: Chaos over entry passes mars Mamata's meeting with sacked teachers

Another demand accepted

He also responded positively to another demand that the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) publish the digital mirror images of the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets of all 22 lakh candidates who appeared for the 2016 exams for recruitment in government-run schools. The OMR sheets would also be published within two weeks after taking legal advice, the minister assured.

The two steps the state government promised to initiate failed to entirely assuage the teachers' concerns, though they themselves pressed for them. “Agitation will continue until our services are reinstated through a clean chit from the Supreme Court,” Moumita Sarkar said, echoing the general sentiment of her fellow agitators.

''We have enough assurances. Let the government first make them public,” Sarkar said.

Experts sceptical

According to retired IPS officer Nazrul Islam, making public the segregated lists or the OMR sheet alone will not resolve the legal tangle surrounding the appointments of 25,753 teachers and staff.

Many experts are skeptical because the court did not accept as conclusive evidence the mirror image of the OMR sheet retrieved by the CBI during the course of investigation into the irregularities.

Basu, emerging from the meeting with the delegation, said that the SSC did not retain digital images of the OMR sheets. It only got copies of those sheets shared by the CBI after retrieving them.

Tricky legal situation

The SSC had stated that 5,000 were illegally recruited. But it could not satisfy the court that none of the remaining recruits was tainted, making it difficult to segregate tainted and untainted.

Also Read: Can't accept SC verdict, says Mamata Banerjee as she slams BJP for 'conspiracy'

Unless the SSC comes out this time with a categorical list, it might not be legally tenable. If it does, then the question might arise as to why it did not come out with such segregated lists earlier.

Other options in front of govt

Sources privy to the government’s scheme of things say there are, however, ways to protect the salaries of the illegible teaching staff. One way is to recruit them as para teachers by hiking the existing pay scale of such contractual teachers.

There is no formal recruitment test required for such contractual appointments.

At present a para teacher at a government-run higher secondary school gets around Rs 13,000 whereas a regular teacher gets around Rs 42,000 with HRA, DA and medical allowances.

“Even we have heard about this plan. The government will increase the salary of the para teachers by threefold to accommodate deserving teachers who lost their jobs. This is a ploy to make us civic teachers like civic volunteers. Some might fall for it thinking something is better than nothing,” Sarkar told The Federal.

It is learnt that there are around 500 illegible teachers who had joined the school services from the government-run madrasas. They could be accommodated in the madrasas if their school employment is not reinstated.

'Non-tainted candidates can apply'

There are provisions in the SC judgment itself for such accommodation, according to sources.

The Supreme Court had said that “non-tainted” candidates will have the right to apply to their previous departments or autonomous bodies to continue in service with those entities.

But will the agitating teachers agree to such a compromised arrangement? If not, then the TMC will be up for trouble with elections due within a year.