Bondita Borah

Bowing to pressure from various quarters the authorities of Jawahar Novodaya Vidyalaya, Titabar have reinstated Bondita Borah, the computer science teacher of the school.

She was terminated from service on December 24 for “unsatisfactory performance” at work by the principal of the school, Mukesh Kumar.

The termination letter stated that the authorities were not satisfied with her response to the show-cause notice regarding her work.

Bondita said that she was yet to receive the reinstatement letter and that it had been sent to the Principal.

“From what I heard was that the letter had been issued by  Shyamolima Deka, deputy commissioner,  Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, Regional Office, Shillong under the department of Human Resources,” she said.

A source said that the Principal had been summoned to Shillong and after a meeting with Deka, the reinstatement letter had been issued.

The source said that the Principal, bowing from pressure from the Titabar units of AASU and the AJYCP, had written to the deputy commissioner to reconsider her termination.

AASU and AJYCP gave the Principal 24-hour deadline to reinstate Bondita, failing which an agitation would be launched against the school.

Bondita had gone public to say that she had been terminated for her anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) stance on Facebook and WhatsApp but that the immediate trigger for her termination was the filming of a programme by students of the institute in which they had sung and recited patriotic songs and poetry during morning assembly.

Following this a non-Assamese teacher had criticized those protesting against CAA as “illiterate”.

This had caused a hue and cry among the students and Bondita had taken up the issue with the teacher in support of the students.

The teacher had later apologized.

Smita Bhattacharyya is Northeast Now Correspondent in Jorhat. She can be reached at: [email protected]