Demands resolution of long pending issues
Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Feb 20: The Jammu and Kashmir College Contractual Teachers Association (JKCCTA) today highlighted long pending issues of College Contractual Teachers working on an academic arrangement basis in different colleges of Kashmir Division for the last 20 years.
Dr Fayaz Ahmad Wani, President JKCCTA while addressing a press conference here said that the faculty working on an Academic arrangement basis have been subjected to the utmost humiliation by the Higher Education Department of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir now Union Territory.
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He said that it is the academic arrangement faculty working in the different colleges of the Jammu and Kashmir UT who have kept the skeletal of higher education alive for decades.
‘The department has never paid any attention to address their genuine demand for regularization/Job Policy, which is their due right,” he said.
The teachers said that after witnessing this humiliation and sensing job insecurity some of the faculty members knocked on the doors of the judiciary in 2014 and zero attention of the authorities towards their grievances extended the number to thousands.
“After analysing their petitions J&K High Court issued Status Quo: interim relief that the position of the petitioner must not be disturbed, till the final disposal of the case,” they said.
The department, the teachers said, was going well with the Status Quo of the candidates and was maintaining the position of the petitioners and released their salaries till July 2019.
“Post-July 2019 period has been very tough for the academic arrangement faculty and the present the challenge of Covid-19 has added to their miseries.”
The High Court, they said, from time to time issued directions to the department to release the salaries of the faculty and maintain their status as per Guidelines 78-HE of 2018 dated 08-02-2018.
“But to our surprise, the department never abided by those orders and directions,” they said.
The teachers said that the High Court also asked for an affidavit from the Department of Higher Education to confirm their stand towards the court cases.
“In their response, the Director Colleges along with all the Principals of the Degree Colleges submitted an affidavit mentioning that they have not disturbed the position of the petitioners and are maintaining their Status Quo, which they were not.”
After the Government decided to start offline classes, the teachers said that as the faculty approached the colleges to resume their duties after winter vacations, the principals didn’t allow them to work and not entertained their presence in the colleges.
The department while formulating any new guidelines or anything for the academic arrangement teachers have never been taken into confidence as being the primary stakeholders.
The Association has requested the LG Manoj Sinha and Advisor Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar and Chief Justice of J&K High Court to intervene in the matter.
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