We are educators, not thieves, say teachers

Kolkata: It was a day of triumph for 32,000 primary school teachers who could finally shed the tag of a ‘fraud' and proved their merit as the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday set aside a single-bench order of 2023, cancelling their appointments, claiming the jobs were sold in the TET 2014 recruitment process. The order was passed by Justice Abhijit Ganguly, now the Tamluk BJP MP. "We are teachers, not thieves," said a teacher as the HC scrapped the earlier order. "We were suddenly tagged as ‘institutional frauds' and deserted by society. We had been working over the past two and a half months but received neither sympathy nor moral support from our colleagues. The judge gave both sides ample time and only after that did the court pass this order. Neither side has anything more to say. We needed this documented verdict to prove our innocence and to erase the stain from our image that was forced on us," said Sahin Firdousi, another teacher. "We teach elementary education. Being portrayed to our students as someone who got this position in exchange for money was utterly humiliating. But we remained strong and finally, we could give a fitting reply." Several of the affected teachers did not sleep a wink the night before and reached the court premises early on Wednesday despite knowing that the case would not be heard till the second half of the day. As the division bench pronounced the verdict in a quiet courtroom, a roar went up outside, with some teachers bursting into tears and others venting their anger at being "targeted for no reason" for such a long time.Susmita Majumder, a teacher from the Dum Dum area, said, "We can finally enter the school with our heads held high. Those who had questioned our recruitment now have their answers." Another teacher, Anup Saha, who teaches at a school in Habra, said he would feel humiliated when his colleagues and even the parents of some children questioned the future of his job, "Even my application for a loan at a nationalised bank was cancelled as I'm from the 2014 TET panel." Suman Ray, who joined the profession in 2017 as an assistant teacher and was recently promoted to the post of a head teacher, said, "I was confident about myself, but the extreme social backlash and teasing from our close circle were undeserved. Several of our friends' marriage proposals fell through due to this reason."In contrast, those candidates who could not make it to the 2014 TET list and had filed petitions against the recruitment process, alleging irregularities, hinted at moving the Supreme Court against this verdict. Achinta Dhara, the spokesperson for the ‘2014 TET Qualified But Not Included Candidates' Forum, said, "We never wanted the jobs of eligible candidates to be cancelled. But the court should see our matter, too. We have valid documents."

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