Don’t assign poll duties to teachers unless no one else available: HC

The issue before the court for consideration was the scope of applicable election guidelines for appointing teachers on election duties and the manner of their implementation.

The Allahabad high court has directed that teachers need not be appointed as booth level officers (BLO), nor do they have to be assigned election duties. Their appointments have to be made only when there is no availability of employees of other categories, the court added.

Allahabad high court (HT File Photo)

With the above observation, Justice Ajay Bhanot made it clear that the Election Commission’s guideline regarding “minimal appointment of teachers” on election duties has to be followed in a strict way.

The issue before the court for consideration was the scope of applicable election guidelines for appointing teachers on election duties and the manner of their implementation.

The petitioner Surya Pratap Singh, an assistant teacher in a primary school in Jhansi district, had moved court against his engagement as a BLO and against the allocation of election-related duties like revision of electoral rolls.

After going through the guidelines of the Election Commission as well as the earlier judgments ,the court observed, “The Election Commission guideline by restricting the appointment of teachers seeks to balance the competing imperatives of the Right to Education, the indispensable role of teachers in the society, and the necessity of electoral work in a democracy. The aforesaid restrictions in Election Commission guidelines have to be interpreted in the backdrop of the importance of education in our country, the role of teachers in our Constitutional scheme, and that elections are the life blood of any democracy.”

“The guideline clearly mandates that the teachers will be employed on election duties only after all other categories of employees mentioned in the Election Guideline have been exhausted. In other words, the appointment of Booth Level Officers or assignment of election duties shall be first made from the pool of all categories of employees depicted in the Election Guidelines,” the court added in its decision dated February 11.