New Delhi, Jul 24 The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the stand of the Election Commission on a public interest litigation raising concerns over the "en masse requisition" of government school teachers as booth level officers and enumeration staff for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls here.
A bench of Chief Justice D K Uapdhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia asked the Election Commission (EC) to file a short affidavit in response to the PIL by lawyers Rajesh Kumar Gogna and Ashok Agarwal, as it questioned if the Commission could make it mandatory for government school teachers to act as BLOs and enumeration staff.
The EC's counsel said SIR was a pan-India exercise and the government teachers are supposed to work only during non-teaching hours or holidays.
He added that teachers are compensated and given an honorarium, and "only 10-14 per cent are eventually called upon" for the SIR process.
"If a request is made for nine teachers, the school deploys only 3-4. I don't have a problem with four teachers showing up," the EC's lawyer said, asserting that the Commission takes a "liberal" view in such matters.
The court said it would close the PIL if the EC counsel were to make a statement that participation of teachers was voluntary and not mandatory in nature.
"Can they be said to be mandatory? Somebody is not interested in your honorarium or compensation. They need rest. It should be voluntary. Taking shade of Article 324 (of the Constitution), you can do whatever you want?" the bench orally remarked.
"If you are calling them volunteers, make that statement. We will dispose it of," it said, while observing that the teachers were not the employees of the Commission and refusal to follow the Commission's instructions was a punishable offence.
The court asked the EC to file a "short affidavit" stating its stand by Monday and listed the PIL for hearing on July 28.
The present petition is filed in public interest for the protection of the fundamental rights under Articles 14, 21 and 21 A of lakhs of children studying in government, municipal and government-aided schools of Delhi, whose teachers - and whose teachers alone - have been requisitioned en masse as Booth Level officers and enumeration staff for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls
The petitioner stated that they filed the PIL to protect the fundamental right to education of lakhs of children studying in government, municipal and government-aided schools in Delhi, whose teachers have been assigned to work in the SIR process.
The PIL claimed that in several schools, the entire regular faculty has been withdrawn during teaching hours, leaving classes to be conducted by either guest teachers or teachers of unrelated subjects.
"The deployment is contrary to the law declared in Election Commission of India v. St. Mary's School, violates section 27 read with Sections 25-26 of the RTE Act, 2009, and ignores the vast pool of non-teaching staff of the authorities amenable to requisition under Section 159 of the Representation of the People Act," the petition said.
The PIL sought a direction to the authorities to "rationalise" deployment of school teachers by capping it at 10 per cent and scheduling their duties outside teaching hours.
It also sought a direction to the authorities to first utilise the available non-teaching staff for the SIR process.
