High Court rejected SSA teachers’ plea of regularization

The High Court of Tripura on Tuesday has rejected the plea of hundreds of  ‘Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan’ (SSA) teachers for regularization in service.

About 450 to 500 SSA teachers had filed a writ petition before the High Court of Tripura over regularization of service after fulfilling norms of the government.

During the final hearing on Tuesday, the single judge of the High Court of Justice Arindam Lodh has rejected their plea, said advocate Koushik Roy and added that final order of the judgement is yet to be received by them.

During hearing, the SSA teachers plea was opposed by the advocate general Siddhartha Shankar Dey and government advocate Debalaya Bhattacharjee on the ground that they had been appointed on temporary basis as part of a special scheme of the government of India and that there are existing guidelines on qualification bar and recruitment process of regular teachers through Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) examinations, so their plea for regularization could not be entertained .

Having heard both sides the judge of the single bench justice Arindam Lodh dismissed the plea.

After the judgement, the representatives of teachers said that after obtaining the certified copy of the judgment passed on Tuesday they will move the division bench of the High Court with the same plea of their regularization in service.

It may be recalled here that on February 23, 2021, in a landmark judgement, the High Court of Tripura ordered the state government to regularize all the teachers working in different schools of the state under ‘Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan ‘ (SSA) within the next six months.

Giving the verdict over the two writ petition filed by two deprived teachers, a division bench of the High Court and the then Chief Justice Akil Kureshi and justice S G Chattopadhyay ordered that all the primary and upper primary teachers under SSA will get the full payment like other government teachers after five years of their service and all the teachers will be regularize in the service after ten years of their jobs.

Senior advocate Purushottom Roy Barman, who represented one writ petition for SSA teachers, said that more than four thousand primary and upper primary teachers under SSA will benefit from this verdict of the Tripura High Court.

Senior advocate Soumik Deb has also represented in another writ petition filed by another SSA teacher and Advocate General Siddhartha Shankar Dey represented and argued for the government in both writ petitions during the court hearing.

Advocate Purushottom Roy Barman said that the High Court in its order pronounced that those SSA teachers, who completed five years of service, should be recognized and their jobs be regularized by the Tripura government after ten years of service without arrears.

Out of frustration over the uncertainty of their service status the SSA teachers had filed writ petitions before the Court in the year 2014 over the long deprivation of SSA teachers and after prolonged hearing, the High Court brought celebration for thousands of SSA.

Back in 2017, the SSA teachers held a 7 days hunger strike demanding regularization of their jobs. The BJP, which was in opposition in Tripura then had promised regularization of jobs of the SSA teachers if they were voted to power in the 2018 Assembly elections. The BJP argued after assuming power said that the SSA teachers are Central Government employees and thus cannot be regularized by the state Government.

Again on October 4th, 2021, a division bench of the High Court of Tripura ordered the state government to submit the reply on November 9th, 2021t over the state government’s scheme on regularization of teachers recruited under Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) .

This order has been issued by the same division bench of the court comprising of Chief Justice Akil Kureshi and justice S G Chattopadhyay after a contempt petition filed by an SSA teachers that state government has contempt the verdict of the court, in which it has directed the state to regularize the services of over 5,000 Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers.

Earlier, in the mid part of September, 2021, the state cabinet decided to regularize all SSA teachers who are TET qualified and a financial scheme for other teachers.

Aggrieved with the decision of the state cabinet, SSA teachers again moved the court and filed another contempt petition.

Later, the state government as per the order of the division bench has submitted in detail the scheme of the state government to regularize SSA teachers.

Similarly, aggrieved about 450 to 500 teachers again filed another writ petition before the single bench of Justice Arindam Lodh demanding their regularization of jobs and on May 23, 2023 (Tuesday), Justice rejected their plea on regularization.