Mumbai: The Bombay high court Monday asked the Election Commission of India to inform how many hours teaching and non-teaching staff of aided schools were made to do election duty. The court sought to know if there was any policy in this regard.
The division bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice M.S. Sanklecha asked these questions while hearing a bunch of petitions filed by the staff of aided schools in the city, challenging notices issued to them by the EC directing them to appear for poll duty for the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
The petitioners contended, among other things, that there was a lack of fixed duty hours for the staff. When this point was raised before the court, the bench asked the EC to file its say on this.
“Do you (EC) have any policy in place with regard to the duration of duty?” the court asked EC lawyer Pradeep Rajagopal. The court posted the petitions for further hearing on April 10.
It may be recalled that last month, the HC granted interim relief to unaided school teachers, asking the ECI not to take any action against teachers who refused to join election duty. However, the relief was temporary till the petition was being heard and hence, when the issue of working hours was raised, the court questioned the EC about the same.
According to the petitioner, all primary school teachers were being used in every Lok Sabha, state Assembly and municipal election. This year too, the ECI had sought the list of primary teachers working in unaided schools from the state government.
The petitioner told the court that aided schools took grants from the state government so they were supposed to work for the government but each time, the Election Commission called unaided private school teachers to do polling duty which was wrong.
