NRMSATA suspends agitation on Sept 5

Nagaland RMSA Teachers’ Association (NRMSATA) 2016 batch announced Thursday that it would suspend its ongoing “total boycott of classes” for a day in honour of Teachers’ Day celebrations. The association launched its phase-II agitation on September 1 against the state government’s failure to implement scale pay despite court directives.
Briefing media persons, NRMSATA president Imlitemjen said the temporary suspension was a mark of respect to the teaching fraternity but warned that the agitation would continue in phases until the issue was resolved.
He expressed gratitude to citizens, student bodies, and civil society organisations for their solidarity, noting that teachers had been “forced into agitation” due to the government’s “unsatisfactory attitude.”
Highlighting that RMSA teachers had served for over nine years without proper scale pay, he pointed out that both the Gauhati High Court Kohima bench and the Supreme Court had upheld their claim. Instead of implementing the order, he said the government filed a review petition without obtaining any stay. A contempt hearing earlier in the day reportedly saw government counsel seek four weeks to file the petition, but no contempt order was served.
“Teachers want to be in the classrooms, but we are being called to the court room instead. We will continue with phase-wise agitation until the state government implements the court’s order”,” Imlitemjen remarked, stressing that students were the worst affected.
NRMSATA spokesperson Renbemo L. Patton criticised the government’s silence, accusing it of using litigation as a tool to delay and harass teachers. Rejecting financial constraints as an excuse, he argued that denying legitimate pay to teachers recruited through open competitive exams was unjustifiable.
Patton added that the government could have acted as early as 2022, when the High Court ruling was issued, but chose to delay. He reiterated that teachers respected the law and were only demanding enforcement of court-ordered rights.