Agartala, June 23 (PTI): The Tripura government has decided to file an affidavit in the apex court before July 25 seeking its permission to provide alternative employment to 10,323 teachers who had lost their jobs, a senior minister said on Tuesday.
The 10,323 teachers had played an important role in the education sector of the state, Education minister Ratan Lal Nath told reporters here.
"Earlier we had filed several petitions before the Supreme Court seeking permission for allowing the state government to recruit them on non-teaching posts.
"Now the court has asked us to file an affidavit before July 25," Nath said.
As many as 10,323 undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate candidates were appointed teachers in government schools in phases since 2010, when the CPI(M)-led Left Front was in power in the state.
However, the recruitment was challenged and the Tripura High Court in 2014 terminated their services, holding the process "faulty".
The then Left Front government had moved the top court against the order but the apex court upheld the High Court verdict in March 2017.
The teachers were declared retired after December 31, 2017, in accordance with the apex court verdict.
They were, however, appointed again on an ad-hoc basis.
After the BJP-IPFT government came to power in March 2018, it had appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted them a one-time final extension till March 31, 2020.
Of the 10,323 teachers, many got other jobs, and at present there are 8,882 teachers whose term of employment expired on March 31.
The BJP-IPFT government had sanctioned Rs 33.93 crore for providing one-time financial assistance to the sacked teachers, he said.
Mentioning that the state government will try to resolve the problem of these teachers, Nath said, the apex court had made it clear that they cannot be recruited in posts of teachers, so the state government made a plea to recruit them on non-teaching and non-technical posts.
