After a 40-hour sit-in protest outside the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) office in Kolkata, unemployed teachers and education workers finally allowed SSC Chairman Siddhartha Majumdar and other officials to leave on Wednesday morning. The decision came after discussions with the police, as Majumdar was required to appear at the Calcutta High Court for a hearing related to the 2016 SSC recruitment case, which had led to the termination of over 25,000 teaching jobs.
The protest began on Monday, with hundreds demanding that the SSC publish a list separating tainted and untainted candidates, as well as mirror images of OMR sheets to ensure transparency. The protest turned tense when the promised list did not appear by April 21 as assured by Education Minister Bratya Basu, leading to clashes between protesters and the police. On Tuesday, Basu revealed that the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) had stated in an affidavit to the Supreme Court that 17,206 candidates were not part of the tainted list.
Despite the Supreme Court’s direction allowing untainted teachers to continue working until December 31, 2025, the protesters expressed dissatisfaction, pointing out that only 15,403 of the 17,206 candidates had been verified as eligible. They questioned why ineligible teachers had not yet been dismissed and demanded accountability from the education minister, particularly regarding the absence of the OMR sheet mirror images. Refusing to return to work under unclear circumstances, they vowed to continue their protest for full transparency and justice.
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