Speaking at a meeting with affected candidates and school staff in Kolkata, Banerjee assured that the state government would ensure continuity of employment for those who are eligible.
“I will stand by those who have lost their jobs in an unjust manner. I don’t care what others think. I will do everything to restore your dignity,” she said.
VIDEO | School jobs case: “Please don’t consider that we have accepted it… we are not stone-hearted, and I can even be jailed for saying this, but I don’t care…” says West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial), addressing people who lost their jobs as teaching and… pic.twitter.com/gXbDMzxZPb
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) April 7, 2025
“We have separate plans in place to ensure that the eligible candidates do not face any break in service. We will not allow them to remain jobless,” she was quoted as saying by PTI.
Her remarks follow the Supreme Court’s April 3 verdict that upheld the Calcutta High Court’s 2022 order to cancel the recruitment of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff in state-run and aided schools.
The appointments, made by the West Bengal School Service Commission in 2016, were declared as “vitiated and tainted beyond resolution” due to large-scale fraud and manipulation, as per ANI.
Read more: WB recruitment row: SC invalidates appointment of 25,753 teachers and other staff in schools
Conspiracy against education system: Mamata
Banerjee alleged that a broader conspiracy was at play to dismantle the education framework in Bengal. “There is a conspiracy going on to destroy the education system… Teachers of classes 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th are the gateways to higher education… Many are gold medallists, they have achieved great results in their lives, and you are calling them thieves,” she said, reported ANI.
Expressing her dismay over the verdict, she said, “The decision that has come cannot be taken in a positive way. For what I am saying, I may be put in jail but I don’t care about that.”
“I am ready to even go to jail if anyone wants to penalise me for standing with those who lost school jobs,” she asserted.
Read more: Mamata Banerjee’s maiden speech at Oxford University marred with ‘go back’ slogans
The CM also raised concerns over the absence of a clear distinction between eligible and ineligible candidates, saying, “The Supreme Court has not given the list of deserving and ineligible. The state government did not get the opportunity to separate this list.”
Mamata confirmed that senior legal experts, including Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Kapil Sibal, and Prashant Bhushan, are now representing the state in the matter. “As long as I am alive, I am not going to let any deserving person lose their job,” she added, as per ANI.
Meanwhile, a day later, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, wrote to President Droupadi Murmu for intervention in the matter saying that thousands of qualified school teachers have lost their jobs, and “treating teachers selected through fair means on par with tainted teachers is a serious injustice”.
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.
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 8, 2025
He said that the “human cost of this injustice” is enormous. Thereby he requested the President to urge the government to take necessary steps to ensure that candidates who were selected through fair means are allowed to continue.
(With agency inputs)
