The Delhi Assembly on Wednesday passed a bill to make 15,000 guest teachers in government schools across the city permanent, IANS reported.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia introduced the “Regularisation of Services of Guest Teachers and Teachers Engaged under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Bill, 2017,” in the Assembly. It was approved by the Cabinet on September 27.
The Bill will now be sent to Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal for his approval. He is expected to oppose it as he had said recently that the Bill was “beyond the legislative competence” of the Assembly. He had also urged Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to reconsider its introduction in the House.
Baijal had said the Bill’s matter is about “services” and so, according to a High Court order, the Delhi government does not have executive powers.
On Wednesday, Kejriwal hit out at Baijal for opposing the Bill and alleged that there was a nexus between the Bharatiya Janata Party, Baijal and the bureaucracy, according to PTI.
Kejriwal also complained that officials did not show the files relating to the regularisation of the teachers to Sisodia, who is also the education minister, on Baijal’s direction. “What state secrets do these files contain that they cannot be shown to us? I want to tell the LG that I am an elected chief minister of Delhi and not a terrorist,” Kejriwal said.
“People did not elect the law secretary, they elected us. The country is run on democracy, not bureaucracy,” he said, adding that the bureaucrats will follow his government’s orders as they were “Delhi’s masters”.
After the Cabinet’s approval, Sisodia had said that there were 50,000 guest teachers in the national Capital, of which 17,000 had passed the Central Teacher Eligibility Test. At least 15,000 teachers had also fulfilled other required criteria to be made permanent, he said. The remaining 35,000 guest teachers will continue to work on rotational basis and can appear for the central exam again, Sisodia had added.
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