High Court serves notice to Tripura govt over direct recruitment of retrenched school teachers

The Tripura High Court asked the state government to reply to a notice within four weeks on direct recruitment of over 8,000 sacked school teachers in the Group C and Group D posts created in different departments, who are part of 10323 school teachers retrenched over faulty recruitment in 2017.

A Single Bench of the Tripura High Court headed by Justice Arindam Lodh served the notice on Friday after hearing of the petition filed by the sacked teachers on April 16 to get legal aid for their recruitment in these posts reportedly as per the Apex Court’s provision.

Bijoy Krishna Saha, a sacked teacher, told the media that as per the Supreme Court’s judgement para 18, the sacked teachers could be appointed in these posts as solace. But the state summoned a written test where the teachers have been asked to appear for the interview along with other applicants.

“There is difference between the state government’s statement to the Supreme Court in an affidavit and their actual role in this recruitment process. We are hopeful that we will get justice”, said Saha.

“The High Court asked the state government to reply in four weeks following the petition filed by the teachers,” said senior advocate Shomik Deb, who moved the case in favour of the teachers.

A total of 10,323 school teachers were terminated following faulty recruitment process according to an order of the High Court in 2014. All these teachers were appointed in different phases since 2010.

The Supreme Court upheld the order in 2017 after the former Left Front government and the sacked teachers filed Special Leave Petitions.
Many of the teachers got an alternative jobs in different departments and over 8,000 teachers were reinducted on an adhoc basis till March last year. Since then, they were rendered jobless.

After coming to power in 2018, the BJP-IPFT government created over 10,000 posts in Group C and Group D categories in different departments and announced to arrange them employment in these posts. The government also approved their age relaxation till March 31 in 2023.

The government brought out a notification stating that the written examinations for these posts would be held on April 24 and 25 this year. However, these examinations were postponed due to rise in COVID-19 cases.