Calcutta High Court bars coercive police motion towards protesting academics in West Bengal-OxBig News Network

A protesting instructor stated the police administration has been notified of their change in venue. File Photo
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

The Calcutta High Court on Friday (May 23, 2025) directed the police to not take any coercive motion towards the protesting teachers accused of violence, and directed the academics to shift the protest website from outdoors the State Education Department headquarters.

The Single Bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh heard the petitions from the ‘Jogya Sikkhok-Sikkhika Adhikar Mancha (2016 SLST)’, often known as the Deserving Teachers’ Rights Forum (DTRF). The court docket handed a number of orders concerning their ongoing protest, contemplating the current incidents that had unfolded across the protest website outdoors the Education Department headquarters at Bikash Bhawan.

Protests erupted throughout the State after the Supreme Court on April 3 upheld the Calcutta High Court’s 2024 order cancelling roughly 26,000 instructing and non-teaching workers appointments over ‘irregularities’ within the 2016 recruitment by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).

On May 15, a conflict between the protesting academics and the police outdoors Bikash Bhawan turned violent, with a number of on either side sustaining accidents. An FIR naming a number of protestors was lodged by the Bidhannagar North police station.

While nobody confirmed up after the police summons initially, just a few days later, on the path of the court docket, three DTRF leaders, accompanied by their authorized counsel, met the Investigating Officer. “I direct the police authorities to go slow in respect of all the accused persons, including the present petitioners. If any individual is called in connection with the case, he would cooperate with the investigation. However, the police authorities will not take any coercive steps against any accused, including the petitioners, till further orders,” the Calcutta High Court’s order learn.

The court docket added that if the academics intend to proceed their agitation, they need to accomplish that at a unique venue. “… on a rotational basis, 200 members at a time would be present at the place of agitation. In case, there are other sympathisers approaching the agitators the same would be communicated to the police authorities,” the court docket stated.

A senior chief of the protesting academics, Brindaban Ghosh, stated the police administration has been notified of their change in venue. The court docket additionally directed the State to ‘treat the petitioners/agitators with a human face’ and to rearrange for a short lived construction for protestors so they don’t fall sick within the scorching summer season warmth.

‘Tainted teachers’ plea’

In associated developments on Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition of “tainted” academics searching for the choice to look within the upcoming contemporary recruitment course of.