Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi wrote to President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday seeking her intervention in the ongoing row over the recruitment of teachers in West Bengal.
In his letter, he has asked the President to take necessary steps to ensure that candidates selected through fair means are allowed to continue.
"I have written to the Honourable President of India, Smt. Droupadi Murmu ji, seeking her kind intervention in the matter of thousands of qualified school teachers in West Bengal who have lost their jobs following the judiciary's cancellation of the teacher recruitment process," he said in a post on X, sharing the letter.
The Supreme Court on April 3 upheld the Calcutta High Court’s verdict to cancel the recruitment of over 25,000 teaching and non-teaching staff in 2016 by SSC for state-funded schools.
“We find no valid ground or reason to interfere with the decision of the High Court that services of tainted candidates must be terminated”, a bench led by CJI Sanjiv Khanna said while pronouncing the verdict.
Further in his letter, Gandhi said, "Any crime committed during recruitment should be condemned, and the perpetrators must be brought to justice. However, treating teachers selected through fair means on par with tainted teachers is a serious injustice."
Appealing to the President, he said you have served as a teacher yourself, I am sure you understand the enormous human cost of this injustice. "I request you to urge the government to ensure that candidates selected through fair means are allowed to continue," he said.
On Monday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, too, met the teachers. She urged them and other staffers to return to their respective schools and “voluntarily” resume duties while her government sought legal recourse. Banerjee also assured to protect the jobs of government teachers whose appointments were cancelled by the Supreme Court last week.
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