10,323 case to be heard tomorrow afresh, government preparing to seek further extension of time to wriggle out of tricky situation

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, August 7, 2025

The law department of the state government is reportedly plotting to preempt an adverse order from the high court tomorrow on the sensational 10,323 illegally retrenched teachers case by seeking time for submission of papers and documents requisitioned by the single bench of the high court headed by Justice Sabyasachi Datta-Purkayastha. As scheduled earlier the case-an amalgamation of three cases filed by graduate ,under-graduate and post-graduate teachers- will come up in the first half tomorrow and will be telecast live on the high court’s official portal and can be seen either by logging on to the portal or the ‘Youtube’. It will be the second time tomorrow that the case will be telecast live as it was in the year 2023.

Disclosing this , Santanu Bhattacharjee, an illegally retrenched 10,323 teacher and a leader of the movement fighting for reinstatement said that the ‘high court’s cause list is yet to be out today but it is possible that hearing of the case will commence from the first half of the working day tomorrow’. Altogether three illegally retrenched teachers Bidhan Das, Santanu Bhattacharjee and Subhas Singh had filed three cases in the high court on behalf respectively of post-graduate , graduate and under-graduate teachers after obtaining ‘liberty’ from the supreme court. The progress of the case hearing and justice delivery would have been faster , had the state government not been dithering over the issue of furnishing necessary documents and papers sought by the high court. On the last date , that is on July 18, the state government had failed to furnish the government recruitment policy of 2001 as well as the ‘Annexure-A’ prepared by the then left front government containing names of teachers to be retrenched. Even though names of only 462 teachers , made parties in the case, were to be retrenched the then director of education U.K.Chakma in consultation with the then law secretary Data Mohan Jamatya had reportedly included names of all 10,323 teachers, as claimed by the law department now but that ‘Annexure-A’ issued on December 23 2017 is now not available or can not be located.

The matter assumes great significance in view of the fact that Justice Deepak Gupta’s original order of May 7 2014 (Para-127) had categorically stated that the order would have ‘prospective effect’ and in the instant case only teachers whose jobs had been challenged on ground of recruitment policy would be terminated, the total number being not more than 60. Besides, it had been wrongly given out then that the 10,323 teachers had been recruited on the basis of policy of 2003 but now it is clear that the policy of 2003 had not even been notified in the state gazette and the teachers had actually been recruited on the basis of the policy of 2001. Besides, the supreme court in its first order in the case on March 29 2017 had merely upheld the high court order, making the entire retrenchment highly illegal and even unconstitutional . All these facts have already been highlighted and presented to the high court’s single bench by the lawyers of the petitioners, advocates Amrit Lal Saha, Aveek Saha and Tarini Kamakshya Nayak who will appear tomorrow also . But sources in court said that , finding themselves in a sticky wicket the state government will seek further extension of time tomorrow because of inability to trace and find papers asked for by the high court. This , however, is a tragic situation because already 209 illegally retrenched teachers have died-35 of them by suicide-following illegal retrenchment and their inability to secure sustenance from any quarter.

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