Education minister Bratya Basu today said the state government is willing to give jobs to the teachers and will abide by the order of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is supposed to give order in the jobs of the teachers case on 14 December.

The job aspirants are agitating for the more than 1000 days demanding jobs and alleged that the lists of State Level Selection List ( SLST) in Primary examination held in 2014 and 2016 have been manipulated and there is misappropriation of talents. The students have staged agitation at the Gandhi statue and two job aspirants, a man and a woman, had tonsured their heads in protest.

Trinamul Congress state general secretary Kunal Ghosh had met the agitating job aspirations on Saturday and fixed up an appointment with the education minister today. Today’s meeting was attended by Bratya Basu, Kunal Ghosh, Manish Jain, principal secretary education department, Siddhartha Majumdar, chairman School Service Commission, Ramanuj Gangopadhyay, chairman West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education. There were seven representatives from the job seekers.

The meeting lasted for nearly-one-and-a-half hours. Talking to reporters after the meeting, Mr Basu said, “Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is eager to give them jobs. The legal complications would be sorted out soon. There was an order of the Single Bench of Calcutta High Court. The matter is pending before the Supreme Court. The matter will come up for hearing on 14 December.

We will follow the order of the Supreme Court. Following this, we will talk to Miss Banerjee to sort out the matter. The chief minister can give jobs and she will do it. Miss Banerjee and the national general secretary of Trinamul Congress are sympathetic towards these agitating job aspirants.” Mr Basu said the next meeting with the job aspirants will be held on 22 December.

Matiur Rahaman, spokesman of the agitating job aspirants, who attended the meeting today, said, “We had always questioned because of legal complications, jobs could not be given to us. We believe that there was a lack of coordination among various departments.

The government officers had discussed with us with an open mind and we are satisfied with the argument they put forward to explain the existing legal complication.” Mr Ghosh said, “There is a silver lining. Miss Banerjee and Abhishek had both tried to resolve the impasse. Today’s meeting was a fall out of that. They are keeping a tab on the situation.”