It was Haruki Murakami who said: “There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes.” For Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal, who rode to power in 2011, misfortune is perhaps another word for “judiciary”.
On Friday, the Calcutta High Court cancelled the appointment of 36,000 primary school teachers who were teaching in government schools in West Bengal. This is perhaps the largest mass sacking of government employees that India has ever seen.
A single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay cancelled the appointment of the 36,000 primary school teachers who cleared the State’s teacher eligibility test in 2014 and were recruited in 2016. A total of 42,500 candidates had been recruited as primary school teachers in 2016. However, a series of petitions were filed in the High Court alleging anomalies in the recruitment process, and several cases were taken up by the court.
The High Court issued instructions to the West Bengal Board of Primary Education to arrange a fresh recruitment exercise within three months for candidates “who were untrained at the time of recruitment (including candidates who have obtained training qualification in the meantime)”. The court said that during that exercise, “both interview and aptitude test of all examinees shall be taken and the whole interview process has to be videographed carefully and preserved…No new candidate shall be allowed to take part in the recruitment test”.
In this particular case, allegations had emerged that the teachers did not have the requisite training and many got selected without taking an aptitude test. The court ordered that the teachers will continue to work for next four months, but will get a reduced salary equivalent to para-teachers.
In the past, too, the court has cancelled appointments–including 1,911 in February and 842 in March. However, this is the largest number of appointments cancelled in one go. Following Friday’s court order, Chairman of the Primary Education Board, Goutam Paul, said, “We are talking with legal experts. We can only say that the Board will take proper steps at the proper time.”
“As per directions of the High Court, we had submitted the affidavit and all documents regarding interviews and aptitude tests. We will challenge this order before an appellate court or division bench of the High Court; all that will be decided after consulting with legal experts,” he said.
Afterwards, BJP state president Sukanta Majumder said, “This government is completely corrupt, that’s been proved. It should take responsibility.” CPIM leader Shatarup Ghosh said, “How much corruption took place, one can only imagine–36,000 candidates got a job without proper interview, proper aptitude test and proper qualification.”
Justice Gangopadhyay had faced the Supreme Court’s heat last month, when the apex court asked the Calcutta High Court Acting Chief Justice to reassign a separate recruitment scam case to another judge. In that specific case, Justice Gangopadhyay had ordered a probe against Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee in connection with the scam.
Corruption is a bugbear that Mamata Banerjee is grappling with as every day brings with it newer and newer allegations of corruption by the ruling Trinamool Congress. In August 2022, the Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had arrested former Education Minister of the Trinamool Congress Government, Partha Chatterjee, and his aide Arpita Mukherjee in connection with the alleged recruitment scam. On 11 October, TMC MLA Manik Bhattacharya, who was the chairman of Board of Primary Education in 2016, was arrested. Currently, more than 15 leaders of the Trinamool Congress, including four MLAs, are in jail after being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate and CBI in different corruption cases. Many more are in line, say Mamata’s critics.
If this was not bad enough, Mamata Banerjee floated a few ideas that her loyal partymen found “innovative”, while her political opponents termed them “foolhardy and bizarre”.
She proposed the introduction of a diploma course in medicine, aiming at combating a “shortfall” of doctors in hospitals in the state. She asked state health secretary N S Nigam to look into the legal aspects of starting such a course to train more doctors for primary healthcare units.
Banerjee, who is also the health minister, said the regular MBBS course takes at least five years for one to be a medical graduate, and asserted that the diploma course “would address the shortfall of doctors”. “We get doctors after a training period of five years which is a long time. In all these years, they have to study hard and sit for examinations. Besides, we utilise them as junior doctors across different hospitals while they are still studying.
“Since there has been an increase in the number of seats, hospitals and patients, we can think about developing a diploma course as well. These doctors could be employed at primary healthcare units,” she said. “You (Nigam) please find out whether we can start a diploma course for doctors, just like we have for engineers. Several boys and girls will get the opportunity to enrol for the medical course,” Banerjee said at a review meeting of “Utkarsh Bangla” held at the state secretariat.
Her second suggestion was to appoint nurses after just a fortnight’s training. She also recommended that senior nurses approaching retirement be appointed as “semi-doctors”. Her third suggestion was to appoint police constables and send them to police stations after just a week’s training.
Predictably, her suggestions have set off a maelstrom of protests in Kolkata. Doctors aligned with the Opposition BJP and CPIM slammed the move. Medical students and nurses too have started protests in the city. Dr Sharadwatt Mukhopadhyay, Convenor of the BJP’s medical cell, said: “It is very easy for the Chief Minister to float such outlandish theories. She goes to private hospitals for treatment of her family members. Her nephew goes to Singapore and the US for eye treatment, and she wants these bogus doctors to treat general people. This is shameful.”
Dr Fuad Halim of the CPIM pointed out that these “diploma doctor idea had already been floated by the BJP earlier.” Mamata Banerjee is trying to float a narrative that major recruitments are in the offing. This is being done to create some talking points before the panchayat elections which are expected in three months, he alleged. Basically, a bankrupt Government wants to hire low-quality recruits on contract at lesser salaries, and no DA or pension, he alleged. Clearly, Mamata’s annus horribilis shows no signs of ending anytime soon.
Suprotim Mukherjee is a senior journalist and The Daily Guardian’s Kolkata correspondent.
