Aided school teachers to have 2-day poll duty: EC
The court was hearing a petition filed by education board, Goregaon and Abhinav Shikshan Prasarak Mandal.
Mumbai: The Bombay high court Friday disposed of the petition opposing election duty to primary teachers of aided schools. The court accepted the statement made by the Election Commission (EC) that only aided school teachers will have to do election duty for two days, and teachers will be trained for election duty. This comes as a breather for aided school teachers who are always told to do poll duty.
A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice M.S. Sanklecha was hearing the petition filed by the education board, Goregaon and Abhinav Shikshan Prasarak Mandal.
According to the petition, the EC had issued notice directing teachers to join duty immediately. Along with teachers, librarians, laboratory assistants, clerks and peons were also deployed for the poll duty.
The petition stated that all these people are stuck with poll duty for around 200-250 days during which the educational and administrative work of schools stops and ultimately, students suffers.
The petitioners also opposed the notice saying that the ECI had not specified the timing of election duty hence, teachers have to work for much longer than their stipulated hours.
On Friday, the court in its order stated that according to the Election Act, 1950, school teachers of aided schools could not be forced to do election-related work. Further, the court also clarified that according to the Act, teachers and staff of aided schools would be deployed for two days and three days’ training would be given separately.
In last hearing, the EC had already cleared to the court that it could call primary school teachers for election duty but the court had asked the EC to put forth the policy pertaining to this issue.
In a similar issue, an organisation of unaided school teachers had approached the court, challenging the compulsion of election duty. They had argued that they did not receive any grant from the government to run the school. The petition was disposed of after the EC informed the court that they will not ask unaided school teachers to perform election duty.