Kolkata, October 29 — The West Bengal cabinet has cleared a proposal to bar teachers newly recruited in state-run schools from contesting any election, and the CPI(M) has decided to challenge the move legally, news agency IANS reported on Thursday. The proposal will insert a disqualification clause into the recruitment rules of the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).
Source: IANS via Hi India
Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari confirmed after the cabinet meeting that the new clause will bar would-be teachers — those recruited henceforth — from contesting elections to panchayats, municipal bodies, the state Assembly and the Lok Sabha. He clarified that the restriction will not apply retroactively to serving teachers who already hold elected public office. The government has framed the move as a step to depoliticise the education sector.
CPI(M) leader Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya, a senior advocate and former Kolkata Municipal Corporation mayor, called the proposal unconstitutional and said he will move the Calcutta High Court once the decision is formally incorporated into the recruitment rules. "It will not be easy to suppress the democratic rights of the common people. Any attempt to do this will be opposed legally," he said, adding: "So let the decision be officially implemented. I will take up the matter at the Calcutta High Court."
A section of serving teachers has also questioned the move. A headmaster of a state-run higher secondary school, who declined to be identified, said that if the government were serious about depoliticising the sector it would have removed political persons from education-related committees, and noted that existing laws in West Bengal do not prevent schoolteachers from engaging in active politics.
The same cabinet meeting also approved permanent Group D government jobs for eligible family members of those killed in the Chorbagan Durga Puja pandal stampede, according to local reports. The teacher-election clause will take effect only once it is formally notified in the WBSSC recruitment rules, a step that has not yet happened — and that notification is what Bhattacharya says will trigger the court challenge.