West Bengal: Massive outrage as SSC fails to publish list separating tainted and untainted candidates

As the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) informed that only the lists for three rounds of counselling of the 2016 SSC panel would be released on Monday, instead of the list separating tainted and untainted candidates, tensions outside the commission office escalated in the evening.

Hundreds of affected teachers and non-teaching workers had marched towards the SSC office earlier in the day, with the hope that the commission would publish the list as assured to them during their meeting with West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu last week.

However, during a meeting with 13 representatives, SSC Chairman Siddhartha Majumdar reportedly informed them that only the lists for the first, second, and third rounds of counselling would be published. The representatives immediately sent this update via SMS to those waiting outside.

This sparked an outrage among those protesting outside the SSC office. Heated arguments broke out between the police and the protesters, with the police urging them to maintain calm, but the demonstrators refused to back down.

They demanded a complete list separating the qualified candidates from those who secured their jobs through unfair means, irrespective of the counselling. They allege that this list would miss out those eligible and qualified candidates who might have got their jobs in the next rounds of counselling. Reportedly, a total of 12 counselling rounds had taken place.

They cite the Calcutta High Court verdict, which was upheld by the Supreme Court, where they claim no distinctions based on the round of counselling was made. Protesters believe they were misled by earlier promises and now suspect that the list is being deliberately withheld.

They have decided to gherao the SSC office and warn that if the list was not made public, no one would be allowed to leave the office, including the chairman.

The police initially failed to control the situation before additional security personnel were deployed as a section of protesters clashed with the cops.

India