The Delhi High Court on Friday came down heavily on the Election Commission of India (ECI) over deploying school teachers for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the national capital, questioning whether the poll body could invoke Article 324 of the Constitution to justify any action.
A Bench led by Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia repeatedly questioned the legal basis for directing teachers to perform electoral duties and asked whether the constitutional provision granting the ECI powers to supervise elections gave it unrestricted authority.
The Bench remarked that the ECI appeared to be acting under the cover of Article 324 to do "whatever it likes" and sought to know under what statutory authority school teachers were being compelled to undertake SIR work. It also noted that teachers who refuse such assignments could face disciplinary consequences.
Appearing for the ECI, advocate Sanjay Vashishtha submitted that the SIR exercise in Delhi was almost complete and that only 10 to 14 per cent of school teachers were ultimately assigned electoral roll revision work. He argued that the Commission derives its authority from Section 13B(2) of the Representation of the People Act and exercises the power sparingly to minimise inconvenience.
The court, however, was unconvinced. Observing that teachers described as "volunteers" had no real choice in accepting the assignments, it told the Commission that if the work was genuinely voluntary, it should say so on record and the matter could be closed.
The Bench also questioned the ECI's stand that teachers were required to work only on holidays or outside teaching hours, asking why they should be deprived of their weekly breaks to discharge duties as booth-level officers merely because they were being paid an honorarium. It observed that compensation could not justify taking away their right to rest.
Finding the Commission's explanation inadequate, the court directed the ECI to file an affidavit setting out its stand and listed the matter for further hearing on July 28.
The observations came while hearing a public interest litigation filed by advocates Rajesh Kumar Gogna and Ashok Agarwal challenging the ECI's decision to requisition school teachers for the SIR exercise.
The petition alleged that in several government schools, regular teachers had been withdrawn during teaching hours, leaving classes to guest teachers or educators from unrelated subjects, severely disrupting academic work.
It contended that the exercise violated the Supreme Court's ruling in Election Commission of India vs St Mary's School, ran contrary to provisions of the Right to Education Act, and ignored the availability of a large pool of non-teaching government staff who could instead be deployed under the Representation of the People Act.
According to the plea, teachers are not confined to holiday duties but are required to attend full-day training sessions, carry out house-to-house verification during school hours and undertake prolonged data entry and verification work, resulting in sustained disruption of classroom teaching.
The petition further alleged discrimination, claiming that only teachers from government, municipal and aided schools had been requisitioned, while private unaided schools had been left untouched. It argued that the burden had disproportionately fallen on schools catering to poor and lower middle-class students, adversely affecting their education.
The petitioners have sought directions to restrict the deployment of teachers to a maximum of 10 per cent of the regular teaching staff in any school.