Agartala: Tripura opposition parties on Thursday demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Manik Sarkar after the apex court upheld the High Court's order to terminate the jobs of 10,323 government teachers.
Trinamool Congress announced the launch of a state-wide agitation from Friday to highlight the state government's "irregularities in giving jobs to 10,323 teachers" and to press for its demand for resignation of Chief Minister Sarkar and Education and Law Minister Tapan Chakraborty.
"We also demand publication of a white paper detailing the government jobs provided 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, Bharatiya Janata Party's state unit President Biplab Kumar Deb and observer (Prabhari) Sunil Deodhar also demanded the resignation of Chief Minister and Education and Law Minister in a joint media conference.
"It is now proved that the Left Front government in Tripura gave jobs to 10,323 teachers through corruption and irregularities," Deb told reporters.
Terming the Supreme Court's order as "inhuman", the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) also demanded a CBI probe in the matter.
"The Supreme Court's order would directly affect the lakhs of people and students in Tripura," the CPI-M, the dominant partner of the Left Front government, said in a statement.
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 till December 31.
"A Supreme Court division bench of Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit upheld the Tripura High Court's May 7, 2014, order terminating the jobs of 10,323 government teachers. However, the Supreme Court allowed them to continue in service till December 31," Tripura Law Secretary Data Mohan Jamatia told IANS over phone from New Delhi.
The apex 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 National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
The Supreme Court order came on three special leave petitions filed before it separately by the Tripura government, aggrieved job seekers and the terminated teachers.
Tripura Law and Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty said in Agartala that the state government would take its next course of action after receiving a certified copy of the Supreme Court judgment and after return of the Chief Minister from Chennai on Friday.
"The government would stand behind 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 decades old employment policy," Chakraborty told IANS on Thursday.
"We have given some jobs based on need and considering 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 of then Chief Justice Deepak Kumar Gupta and Justice Swapan Chandra Das (since retired), 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.
