Tripura: Terminated ‘10323 Teachers’ Join Agitation Demanding Restoration of Job

At least 10,323 school teachers in Tripura who were ‘terminated’ from their jobs have again come forward protesting against the government to reinstate their jobs.

Notably, hundreds of retrenched teachers, popularly as ‘10323 Shikshak’, in spite of incessant rain on Wednesday gathered from across the state to join their agitation demanding the government restore their jobs.

The retrenched teachers were up on the streets and agitated on the basis of an RIT that they recently received from the Supreme Court which says 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..’

They alleged that due to the misinterpretation of the apex court order by the then director of education and who issued a common notification for termination of all 10323 teachers on 23 December 2017 they lost their job though all of them were not even parties in that case.

Today morning as the agitators were marching towards the Siksha Bhavan, they were stopped by security forces who had put up barricades in both directions of the road that proceed towards the office complex of the education department.

They raised slogans against the government and security forces for stopping them, however, later a delegation of the agitating teachers met with senior officials of the education department and tried to convince them of their demand and urged them to resolve it within this month.

The delegation of retrenched teachers raised three issues - either they are served individual notices why they are being terminated, or a termination letter be provided to every individual and then allowed them to attend school. 

However, as the officials could not convince the delegation with any of their demands so they entered the Director’s room and demanded that till they are satisfied with the reply shall not leave the room though the police tried to bring them out of the room.

Three years back all these 10323 teachers who then were serving as ‘ad-hock’ had lost their earnings as were terminated as per order on 23 December 2017 by the then director of secondary education department of Tripura government, who maintaining the Supreme Court of India order dated 14.12.2017 in connection to cases regarding their appointment and recruitment policy.

Recently a section of the teachers also went to their previous schools and tried to join and following which on September 8 last the Joint Secretary of the state government in a letter to all headmasters and teachers in charge of schools mentioned that since the High Court and Supreme Court in their order said that the very selection and appointments of those 10323 teachers were found to be illegal and invalid, so no other advantage can be conferred upon the concerned candidates.