Kolkata, Apr 22 (PTI) Unfazed by repeated appeals from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Education Minister Bratya Basu to withdraw agitation and rejoin classes, agitating teachers, now rendered jobless by a Supreme Court verdict, announced on Tuesday they would continue with their indefinite sit-in before the state School Service Commission headquarters till their demand for publication of a list of tainted and untainted candidates is met.

The decision of the protesting teachers, who braved the sultry Kolkata weather, lack of basic amenities like toilets and drinking water and continued their overnight siege to the SSC office while holding the commission top brass and staff gheraoed inside the building, came after a fresh round of talks between them and SSC Chairman Siddhartha Majumdar fell through.

The protestors, however, said they would allow food and medicines of the gheraoed officials and staff to reach their intended recipients inside Acharya Sadan, the SSC office.

In a similar demonstration, sacked non-teaching staff kept the streets outside the adjacent Derozio Bhavan, the office of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE), occupied and threatened to stay put till the demanded list was published.

Earlier in the day the education minister, while assuring that the state government stood firmly beside the teachers who lost their jobs, urged the protesters to refrain from doing anything that “might weaken the review petition” which the state was planning to file before the top court.

The minister reasoned that the state’s top legal counsels have advised against publication of the said list since there are no directions from the Supreme Court to that effect and could jeopardise the reinstatement chances of the ‘deserving’ teachers ahead of the planned petition.

“We have already secured the Supreme Court’s leave to allow the deserving teachers to continue in their jobs till the end of this year. No one has been issued termination notices yet. We have not stopped the salaries of untainted teachers. We are urging the protestors to withdraw agitation and return to their classes and allow us to do our job,” Basu said.

“We are filing a review petition. So, I request the agitating teachers not to act in any way that may weaken our petition, violate the Supreme Court’s order, or result in contempt of court by them or us,” he added.

Addressing a gathering during a government administrative programme in Midnapore, the CM urged the teachers to return to work, assuring them that her government will “protect” their salaries.

“You don’t need to worry about who is tainted and who is not. You only need to worry about whether you have your job and whether you are getting your salaries on time. The list to identify the tainted and untainted teachers remains with the government and the courts. We assure you that your jobs are safe for now and you will get your salaries,” she said.

Banerjee also warned the protesting teachers not to fall prey to those trying to provoke them.

“Had I been in Kolkata, I could have solved the issue within seconds,” she said.

Unmoved, the disgruntled educators accused Banerjee of making “false promises of job security”.

“It does not concern us what means the government will adopt to ensure that the jobs of the deserving teachers are restored with full dignity and honour. We are not looking for a temporary respite. We did not take recourse to any fraudulent means to get our jobs and we want complete reinstatement with salaries till retirement. We will not rest till that goal is achieved and so we have decided to stay put,” said Chinmoy Monndal, a protesting teacher, after emerging from the meeting with the SSC chairman.

In all, jobs of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff of state-run and -aided schools were annulled after the Supreme Court found large-scale irregularities in the 2016 SSC recruitment process and scrapped the entire panel on April 3.

The apex court on April 17 extended till December 31 the services of terminated teachers found untainted by the CBI, but offered no such breather to the non-teaching staff.

“We are partially satisfied with the list of 17,206 teachers of whom 15,403 are eligible as confirmed by SSC,” Mondal told reporters after the meeting.

But there is no explanation why the mirror images of OMR were still not posted on the SSC website as promised.

“Tomorrow we will seek clarification from WBBSE on why those tainted among the 17,206 are not being sacked. We will seek clarification from the minister as to why mirror images of OMR are still not out,” he said.

Unconfirmed reports of the education department circulating the list to the District Inspector of schools for salary disbursement further irked the protestors.

“If they can send the list to the DIs, why can’t they publish it for everyone to see?” another teacher asked.

Former judge and BJP MP Abhijit Ganguly rubbished the government’s logic of publishing the demanded list leading to “weakened legal standing” and accused the education minister of “misleading” the teachers.

“There is absolutely no contradiction between publishing the list and the Supreme Court judgment. This is a demand for transparency. It should have been published long ago. Has the court directed anywhere in its orders to not publish the list? It hasn’t,” Ganguly said. PTI SUS PNT BSM SOM RBT SMY NN