Tripura forms 3-member panel to look into issues of retrenched teachers

The Tripura government on Wednesday formed a three-member committee headed by a retired high court judge to look into the issues of 10,323 retrenched teachers.

The announcement came a day after Chief Minister Manik Saha assured the retrenched teachers of doing "something" ahead of the state elections.

"The state government has decided to constitute an advisory committee for providing recommendations to resolve the issues related to the teachers dismissed as a fall out of a high court's judgement in May, 2014," said NC Debbarma, the Additional Secretary of Secondary Education.

"The committee will submit their recommendation to the government on or before March 31, 2023," he said.

Justice (retired) AB Paul will head the panel, while the two other members are advocate Chandra Shekar Sinha and retired IFS officer Prasenjit Pal.

Four officers will be engaged to help the committee.

Saha had on Tuesday said that he was consulting legal experts to resolve the issue.

"We have the will to do something for the dismissed teachers but fear that contempt of court may come on the way. They will have to wait, and I am hopeful of finding a solution to the fiasco," he said.

Following separate writ petitions, the Tripura High Court had dismissed 10,323 teachers on the grounds of faulty and illegal appointment in May 2014.

The then Left Front government had challenged the verdict in Supreme Court, but the apex court upheld the earlier order in 2017.