Opposition parties in Tripura demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the recruitment process after the Supreme Court upheld the state High Court order terminating the jobs of 10,323 government teachers.
Trinamool Congress on Thursday announced launch of a statewide stir from Friday to highlight the state government's "irregularities in giving jobs to 10,323 people" and to press its demand for the resignation of Chief Minister Sarkar and Education and Law Minister Tapan Chakraborty.
"We also demand publication of a white paper detailing providing government jobs in Tripura since 2014. An all-party meeting must be called by the state government to discuss the issue and how to deal with the situation arising out of the Supreme Court judgment on Wednesday," Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Sudip Roy Barman told reporters.
Accompanied by Tripura TMC President Ashish Kumar Saha and other leaders, Barman alleged that to "acquire political mileage the Left Front government provided the teachers' jobs illegally".
Demanding a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), opposition Bharatiya Janata Party state president Biplab Kumar Deb and observer (Prabhari) Sunil Deodhar in a joint media conference demanded the resignation of the Chief Minister and Education and Law Minister.
"It has now been proved that the Left Front government in Tripura gave the jobs to 10,323 teachers through corruption and irregularities," BJP leader Deb told reporters.
The ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the dominant partner of the Left Front government, in a statement termed the Supreme Court's judgment as "inhuman".
"The Supreme Court's order would directly affect the lakhs of people and students in Tripura," the CPI-M statement said.
In a major setback to the Tripura government, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the Tripura High Court order terminating the jobs of 10,323 teachers but allowed them to continue in their jobs till December 31.
The Court also asked the Tripura government to initiate a fresh recruitment process by May 31 and complete it by December 31 in compliance with the obligatory qualifications as mandated by the NCERT (National Council for Educational Research and Training).
The Supreme Court order came on three special leave petitions filed before it separately by the Tripura government, aggrieved job seekers and terminated serving teachers.
Tripura Law and Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty said in Agartala that the state government would take its next course of action after receiving the certified copy of the Supreme Court judgment and after the return of Chief Minister from Chennai on Friday.
"The government will stand by the serving teachers. The court did not find any irregularities in giving jobs to these teachers. The Tripura High Court only challenged the state's three-and-a-half decade old employment policy," Chakraborty told IANS on Thursday.
"We have given some jobs according to need based and considering the economic conditions of the families of the serving teachers, but the court opposed these criteria," the Minister added.
A division bench of the Tripura High Court, comprising then Chief Justice Deepak Kumar Gupta (now elevated to the apex court) and then Justice Swapan Chandra Das (retired on March 16) had passed the order on May 7, 2014 and asked the state government to frame a new employment policy within two months.
Tripura's Left Front government recruited 1,100 post-graduate and 4,617 graduate teachers in 2010 and 4,606 under-graduate teachers in December 2013.
--IANS
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