Final hearing in the sensational case of 10,323 teachers concluded in high court bench headed by Justice Sabyasachi Datta Purkayastha

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, August 18, 2025

The final hearing of the sensational 10,323 teachers case in the single bench of the high court of Tripura headed by Justice Sabyasachi Datta Purkayastha concluded today with the advocates Amrit Lal Saha, Aveek Saha and T.K.Naike presenting their final arguments on behalf of the petitioners Subhas Sinha (under-graduate teacher), Santanu Bhattacharjee (graduate teacher) and Bidhan Das (post-graduate teacher). The cases had been filed by the petitioners after being granted ‘Liberty’ from the supreme court. The government side was represented by the advocate general Shaktimay Chakraborty and government advocate Dipankar Sharma who actually made the presentations of the arguments.

The hearing had commenced around 11-20 AM and the petitioners advocates , specially Amrit Lal Saha cogently argued that the Annexure A furnished by the government on downgrading the status of 10,323 teachers to ad hoc position on December 23 2017 and en masse retrenchment order on March 31 2020 had no reference to any judicial order passed by the high court or supreme court in the Tanmay Nath case. Moreover the orders had been of omnibus nature even though termination notices have to be served individually. Besides, the government side had failed to produce the letter of approval of the state government’s law department for going up in appeal to the supreme court in the case, as required by the Rules of Executive Business (REB).

Advocate Amrit Lal Saha also referred to constituent assembly debate and the contention of Dr B.R.Ambedkar to prove that no individual employee/teacher etc can be terminated from service without any prior notice as per Article 311 (2) of the constitution and the exceptions in this regard are not applicable to the petitioners in this case. Most importantly , advocate Amrit Lal Saha also referred to the Para 127 of the parent judgment passed by the then Tripura high court chief justice Deepak Kumar Gupta and justice Swapan Chandra Das, emphatically stating that their order would have ‘prospective effect’ and in the instant case only teachers whose jobs had been challenged on ground of recruitment policy or rule- around 60/62-would be terminated. Besides, it was proved by advocate Amrit Lal Saha that the 10,323 teachers had been recruited on the basis of recruitment rules of 1970 , marginally amended in 2001 and 2007 providing for recruitment on fixed pay for a period of five years. The recruitment had never been made on the basis of the non-existent policy of 2003 , as contended by the government side and litigants in opposition earlier. The case was therefore void ab initio , argued Amrit Lal Saha.

The government side failed to present any cogent argument on their position that the retrenchment had been made on the basis of supreme court order in the Tanmay Nath case. Sources in the high court said that Justice Sabyasachi Datta Purkayastha had given a patient hearing to both sides with occasional and brief interventions for making queries and observations. The final order will be passed by the Justice at a later date to be notified in the cause list.

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