Agartala: The ‘10,323 teachers’ case of Tripura took a new turn on Tuesday after Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi decided to preside over the three-judge bench along with Justice Udai Umesh Lalit and Justice DY Chandrachud, who are expected to give the final verdict on November 1.
The case involving appointment of teachers has witnessed many such dates being set and later postponed in the past. After a hearing was scheduled for September 17 , it was deferred to October 24. The Supreme Court then reserved its judgement in the case for November 1.
Meanwhile, two days before the verdict, a massive protest rally was taken out by the 10,323 teachers in the capital city on Tuesday. Later, they submitted a memorandum to education director UK Chakma.
Talking to EastMojo, Narayan Das, who is one of the aggrieved teachers, said: “We demand punishment for the culprits for whom we are facing this situation today. They are the one who made mistakes by not following the norms and regulations while recruiting us.”
Das added: “Most of us have already served for more than nine years now, but we don’t know what we will do if we don’t get any support from the government. Our fate completely depends upon the Supreme Court verdict.”
The appointment of 10,323 teachers were cancelled by the Tripura High Court on May 7, 2014 after spotting irregularities in the recruitment process. The irregularities surfaced after 59 ‘qualified’ youths filed a petition in the high court.
The then Chief Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Swapan Chandra Das had passed the judgment that the jobs would end on Dec 31 that year, as appointments were not made following the norms.
The high court had asked the government to recruit those deprived youth and save the 10,323 jobs, but the then government didn’t go by the order and instead challenged the verdict in the apex court.
Later, the SC on March 29 last year upheld the judgment of the high court and said the jobs would end on December 31.
But the CPM government then requested the SC to extend the jobs for another six months as the schools would fall short of teachers in the middle of the session. Later the CPM government announced 12,000 non-teaching education staff posts to bypass the apex court’s order. But the government’s decision was challenged.
To check whether the rules can be amended, a team of teachers reportedly submitted a file to the law department. The apex court will decide the fate of the teachers who have served close to ten years in service.
