Delhi: Kashmir Files row takes fresh turn, AAP-BJP sparring escalates

During his address in the Delhi Assembly Monday, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that while the BJP cared only about The Kashmir Files movie, AAP cared about the displaced Kashmiri Pandits.

“Serving those who made the movie and earned crores was your politics. Serving Kashmiri migrants is our politics… for 32 years, these teachers worked on contracts. In that time, the BJP was also in power in Delhi. They didn’t even place a file to start the process to regularise them,” Sisodia said.

He said the AAP government had passed orders to regularise 233 of these teachers within days of the issue coming to them.

Earlier, speaking to Times Now, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said: “When the migration from Kashmir happened, many people came here as well. Around 233 people became contractual teachers in Delhi in 1993. Since then, Delhi has seen both BJP and Congress governments. When we came into power, we regularised them with retrospective effect.”

The Government School Teachers Association (Migrant), however, issued a statement claiming the Delhi government regularised the teachers only after they approached the Delhi High Court.

The association said that Kashmiri migrant teachers had first approached the court in 2010 after which a single bench delivered a judgment in favour of their regularisation, which was challenged by the government before a double bench. The association said this bench also directed that the teachers be regularised, which was challenged by the government in the Supreme Court, which dismissed its petition in 2018.

“In 2019, finally the government regularised Kashmiri migrant teachers, having no other option left. This indicates that the Delhi government was never interested in regularising the services of KMT. In fact, the Delhi government opposed the regularisation till the very end,” read the statement.

BJP leaders, too, said the Delhi government had in fact stood against Kashmiri migrant teachers in court. West Delhi MP Parvesh Sahib Singh said it was the court that had ordered the government to give permanent jobs to them. “But it is not surprising that the Chief Minister is trying to take credit for it,” he said.

Senior AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj however said it was the Centre-nominated Lieutenant Governor who had opposed the regularisation in court.

“We passed a cabinet note to bring in a policy to regularise these teachers in 2017. The matter was already underway in court. Regularising contractual employees is not a simple process as this route has previously been used by others to give jobs to undeserving people. For this reason, we made a policy. If one goes through the court documents, they will see that initially there is an undertaking by the government that talks about regularising these teachers. Thereafter, the L-G Office said that since the matter is related to services, the elected government does not have powers. The lawyers were also changed and the new lawyers opposed the regularisation,” Bhardwaj, the MLA from Greater Kailash, said.