Tripura: 8,800 sacked teachers waiting to join back schools, urge the government to break its 'silence'

Mixed responses were noticed as a large number of retrenched teachers, (popularly known as ’10,323 sikhak’), since August 12 (Friday) and as per their pre-announcement, had an abortive attempt to rejoin service in various schools across Tripura.

The sacked teachers based on an RTI reply obtained from the Supreme Court claimed that the apex court had informed them that ‘as per record, you are not a party in SLP (C) Nos. 18993-19049/2014 titled The State of Tripura & Ors. & Etc. Vs Tanmoy Nath & Ors. & Etc..’

Three years back, all these 10,323 teachers who then were serving as ‘ad-hoc’, had finally lost their earnings after being terminated from their services. The termination took place as per order on 23 December 2017, by the then director of the secondary education department of the Tripura government.

The apex court had maintained the judgment of the High Court of Tripura and directed that "On 31s December 2017, the tenure of the incumbents (10,323 teachers) will come to an end. Thereafter, their appointment will only last for another six months on an ad-hoc basis on such fresh terms as the State Government may impose" and further observed that, "Thereafter, none of the said incumbents will continue."
Now again a large section of these former teachers, based on an RTI reply from the Supreme Court, reportedly say that they are not a party, is again trying to join their respective old schools. The situation has created a lot of confusion among everyone, with the state government still maintaining silence on the issue.

India Today NE tried to contact Tripura’s advocate general Siddhartha Sankar Dey over the phone to get his response on the issue but the call was not attended. However, reportedly speaking to a local daily the advocate general said that “there is no room for any confusion regarding serving individual termination letter since when the case was in the High Court of Tripura, public notification was published and in which it was mentioned that all those to be affected are parties of the case and urged to submit in writing if anyone has anything to say regarding it.”

He added, “I have no idea what the Supreme Court had said as I have not seen the RTI reply and so shall not comment regarding it but I can surely say that in the main court case in connection to their job everyone’s name will not be there, maybe so the reply from the apex court is like that.”

“On December 31, 2017, the then government served termination letter to everyone and they accepted it. Moreover, in that termination letter, it was mentioned that after termination they shall be appointed for six months on an ad-hoc basis. As that six months period passed the present government with permission from the Supreme Court rearranged for continuing their jobs for another two years on the same ad-hoc basis. In the meantime the government with good intentions tried to appoint them in five categories and for which urged for permission from the highest court but was denied,” said advocate general Dey.

He did not deny a political force with vested interest working behind this and said that in this case there is no question of the terminated teachers joining schools and for which the Supreme Court needs to withdraw its old order and re-issue a fresh order to the government.

Meantime, in many schools the head of the institute welcomed and received the application regarding joining and even maintained a separate attendance sheet while in many others the school authority refused to accept in two instances at Khayerpur and Hrishyamukh, there were reports of them being ‘physically hackled’ allegedly by local ruling party supporters.

In most of the schools, the students and teacher-colleagues heartily welcomed the retrenched teachers and warmly treated them with love and respect. In many schools, the students and teachers got emotional as they met after a long gap.

In certain schools, the retrenched teachers were also allowed to take classes while the headmasters received the joining and sent copies of them to inspectors of schools. Reportedly untoward incidents took place in Shivdurga Senior Basic School in Khayerpur under the Jirania inspectorate of schools where retrenched teacher Anwar Hossain and three others including female teachers were physically assaulted. Again across Hrishymukh in southern Tripura, local antisocial elements allegedly under the aegis of the ruling party stormed all schools in the area and forcibly sent back the teachers. 

There were also reports from the bordering Boxanagar area where the school authorities citing instruction from higher authorities sent back the retrenched teachers.

Kamal Dey, leader of the Joint Movement Committee (JMC) of the retrenched teachers condemning the incident said, “When the RTI reply from the Supreme Court says except a handful of teachers and against whom the case was file others are not a party in the case so why should we lose our job moreover, till date the department has not served us any termination letter so we went to rejoin.”

He added, “Though in most of the schools both the authority and students welcomed us in few places including Agartala, Mohanpur, Hrishyamukh, Jirania there were few shameful incidents of violence especially organized by outsiders who are in no way related with us or the school authorities. All these should be stopped and the state government should immediately look into the issue and resolve it as now we have documents from the highest court.”

Meantime, another teacher leader Dipankar Debbarm said that in total there were 58 writ petitions and the main petitioner Tanmoy Nath had challenged the UGT category job on selection against 462 candidates besides challenging the recruitment policy of 2003 but the state government without judiciously examining the High Court and Supreme Court order had issued a common termination letter on 31 march 2020 through a large majority of the teachers were even not a party of those cases.

“We are neither petitioners nor respondents in the court so how can all 10323 teachers lose their jobs? This is because of the callousness of a section of the bureaucracy who were reluctant and enjoying the crisis,” alleged Debbarma.
He also informed that if the government is not serious now then they shall have no other option but to go for massive agitation across the state.

Whatever may be the fact but it can surely be said that out of the 10,323 terminated teachers at present some 8,800 are still agitating on various platforms to get back their job, which shall surely be a key vote factor as Tripura goes for the vital assembly poll in next six month.