Kolkata, June 15 Four “untainted” or “genuine” teachers in state-run schools in West Bengal, who have lost jobs following a Supreme Court order in April this year and who had been on hunger strike near the office of West Bengal school service commission since the night of June 12, have fallen sick on Sunday and had to be hospitalised.
Those who fell sick on Sunday include the leading face of the movement by “untainted” teachers, Chinmoy Mondal.
The other three who were hospitalized on Sunday include Sukumar Saren, Achintya Kumar, and Bikash Roy. However, the five mentioned above have been admitted to two different hospitals all in Kolkata.
Mondal has been admitted to N.R.S. Medical College & Hospital, while the other three have been admitted to R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital.
On Sunday, representatives of a voluntary organization of medical practitioners namely the Medical Services Centre reached the dais of the hunger strike near the WBSSC office at Salt Lake on the northern outskirts of Kolkata and examined the health conditions of the protesting teachers.
The doctors immediately prescribed hospitalization for five of them. Initially, they refused to get admitted. However, their medical conditions started deteriorating and finally, the doctors managed to pursue them to get hospitalized.
According to Dr Soumyadip Roy, one of the representatives of the Medical Services Centre, the venue of the hunger strike was not at all hygienic for the same, and hence the protesting teachers started becoming sick so early.
“The condition of Chinmoy Mondal is especially critical. The sugar level in his blood has declined alarmingly. Ketone bodies have been detected in his urine,” Roy said.
Meanwhile, the protesting “untainted” teachers said that come what may they would not appear for the fresh recruitment examination, the notification for which has already been announced by the commission..
“We have no reason to appear for a fresh recruitment examination since we qualified for the job earlier and in the proper way unlike the “tainted” ones, who got jobs paying money. first the Calcutta High Court last year and then the apex court in April this year would not have ordered for the cancellation of jobs of “untainted” teachers along with the “tainted” teachers had the West Bengal government and the commission published separate lists segregating the “untainted” teachers from the “tainted” ones. said Mehboob Mondal, one of the representatives of “Jogyo Shikshak-Shikshika Adhikar Mancha” (Genuine Teachers’ Rights Forum), the banner under which the protest movements are being organised.
On April 3, a Supreme Court bench comprising then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar upheld a previous order of the Calcutta High Court that annulled 25,753 school appointments made through the WBSSC.
The apex court observed that the panel had to be scrapped entirely due to the authorities' failure to distinguish between "tainted" and "untainted" candidates.
The state government and the WBSSC have since filed review petitions in the Supreme Court seeking reconsideration of the order.
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