Tripura government has relaxed upper age limit of 10,323 terminated teachers to pave way for their recruitment in government jobs. The government has issued a formal notification on age relaxation of the teachers who were terminated early this year after the end of a Supreme Court directed deadline.
The State’s BJP led coalition government had earlier approved phased recruitment of the teachers. The government offered them posts in Group C and Group D. Officials on Wednesday said upper age relaxation was done in a manner so that teachers could be engaged in government jobs in next two years. They said four thousand posts in Group C and Group D under various departments are vacant and the teachers will get preference in filling them up.
Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath had said the government’s decision to offer fresh opportunity to the teachers has been purely a “humanitarian” decision as they lost job by an order of the apex court.
These 10,323 school teachers were recruited on ad-hoc basis in various phases during erstwhile left front government. Their employment however was challenged in the court and in 2014 the High Court of Tripura terminated their services finding serious faults in entire recruitment process and non-compliance of provisions of the National Council for Teachers Education Act, 1993.
The Supreme Court in 2017 upheld the High Court order and set a deadline for termination of services of the teachers.
Dismissed teachers have been frequently staging noisy protests across the State to press demand for re-employment in government service. They recently held a stir outside State-run Tripura Gramin Bank to waive loan interest of many defaulter teachers.
