The Supreme Court (SC) judgment on Calcutta High Court Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay is upsetting and demoralising to agitating eligible candidates, who passed the SSC test got selected as teachers in different schools of Bengal but never got jobs.
Soon after the news of the SC directive spread on Friday, the deprived candidates who are staging sit-in programme on Mayo Road in the city for the past 774 days demanding appointments in posts of teachers, Group C and D in primary and upper primary schools across the state decided to intensify their ongoing protest till they get justice.
The SC on Friday directed the Calcutta HC acting chief justice to reassign alleged West Bengal primary school job ‘scam’ to another judge after examining a report on Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s interview to Bengali news channel in September in 2022. On 24 April, Justice Gangopadhyay had found himself facing a setback when the SC took an exception to the TV interview given by him.
The agitating candidates came down on the road in the Esplanade area carrying photos of Justice Gangopadhyay and demanded that he should be brought back for hearings for cases related to teachers recruitment scam. “We are very upset after hearing the SC judgment reassigning another judge removing Justice Gangopadhyay for hearing of cases in connection with recruitment scams in schools.
We demand he should be brought back because of him the recruitment scam is getting exposed regularly.
We have seen a ray of hope for getting jobs,” one agitating candidate said. “We have been awaiting justice since long and heading towards the goal gradually only because of Justice Gangopadhyay who is a god to us. We will intensify our movement from tomorrow again demanding Justice Gangopadhyay’s comeback to take up our cases again,” another agitator said.