In an unprecedented move, the Tripura government on Tuesday sought the Supreme Court's permission to re-appoint over 10,000 post-graduate, graduate and under-graduate teachers, whose appointments were quashed on court orders, as peons, night guards, gardeners, cooks and lower division clerks.

Tripura government in 2010 and 2014 recruited 1,035 PGTs, 4,666 TGTs and 4,612 UGTs through oral interview under the Revised Employment Policy, 2003. The High Court on May 7, 2014, set aside the 2003 policy and quashed the appointment of all teachers. The SC on March 29, 2017, upheld the HC order, directed framing of new policy and recruitment thereunder by December 31, 2017.

Though the new employment policy was framed in 2017, the state government continued the employment of terminated teachers on ad hoc basis citing the shortage of teaching staff and non-completion of recruitment through proper advertisement and examination process. The SC on November 1, 2018, had permitted the state to continue with ad hoc engagement of terminated teachers till March 31, 2020.

However, in between the state devised a method to step around the SC order and sought to recruit the terminated teachers by creating 12,000 posts to absorb them as a student counsellor, school library assistant, academic counsellor, hostel warden and school assistant. The age and qualification requirements were tailored to appoint the very same persons whose appointments were quashed to the posts of teachers and thereby defeat the order of the Court quashing their appointment. SC issued contempt notice, which forced the state to stop the misadventure.

The state government now has moved an application clarifying that the terminated teachers will be given no benefit of the years of service they have put in nor would they be given any legal right when they would be absorbed as peons, night guards, gardeners, cooks, day guards, horticulture workers, Anganwadi supervisors, lower division clerks, panchayat secretaries, agriculture assistants, junior storekeepers and fishery assistants. The state has identified 10,618 vacant posts in these categories in various departments.

During the arguments before a bench of Justices U U Lalit, M M Shantanagoudar and Vineet Saran, the terminated teachers through senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Colin Gonsalves and Joydeep Gupta made a renewed effort to salvage the lost jobs. The council also argued that some of them might be willing to take Group C and D posts, proposed by the state government, but demanded that they should be given the benefit of their past service as teachers with the State, even if they were appointed illegally.

For the state, senior advocate Maninder Singh vehemently contended that neither they are entitled to make any prayer for appointment as teachers nor would they be entitled to any benefit of the past service which was nothing but an outcome of an appointment held to be completely illegal and unconstitutional by the SC. The bench reserved its order.