Ensure SIR duties do not cause unbearable burden on school teachers: Delhi High Court to ECI

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to ensure that election-related duties assigned to schoolteachers do not impose an "unbearable" burden or cause them excessive stress..A Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia said that while there is not dispute over ECI’s power to engage teachers for electoral roll revision duties, the mandate under Section 27 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) cannot be lost sight of. Section 27 of the RTE Act stops teachers from doing non-educational work. It lists only three exceptions - population census, disaster relief and election duties. “We, however, may also emphasise that after working in a school for 6-8 hours, if a teacher is engaged to perform election duties, it may cause stress and, therefore, it is expected of the Election Commission of India and its officers to be mindful of the stress which a teacher undergoes while performing election-related duties after the school hours and on non-teaching days. Accordingly, we direct that while assigning the work related to elections to the teachers, the aforesaid aspect shall also be kept in mind by the ECI and its officers and therefore they shall take all appropriate steps so that the election related work does not cause so much stress on teachers which may lead to unbearable burden,” the Bench ordered.The Court passed the order while dealing with a public interest litigation (PIL) petition against requisitioning of school teachers for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the national capital. .The High Court had earlier questioned the ECI for deploying school teachers for SIR duty. The Bench had asked whether the ECI can do whatever it pleases by taking recourse to Article 324 of the Constitution. Article 324 confers on the ECI powers of superintendence, direction, and control over elections to Parliament and State legislatures."Taking shade of Article 324, you do whatever you like?" the Bench asked when the case was initially heard on July 24. The Court further asked the poll body under which authority it was directing school teachers to work in SIR..It is expected of the Election Commission of India and its officers to be mindful of the stress which a teacher undergoes while performing election-related duties after the school hours.Delhi High Court .The ECI filed an affidavit today giving details of teachers requisitioned and engaged in election duties and its powers to do the same. It stated that no teacher is being engaged in SIR duties during school hours and that the Commission is strictly following the mandate laid down by the Supreme Court in its judgement. While the petitioner challenged the assertions made by the ECI, the High Court said that they must prove that any teacher has been engaged in SIR work during school hours. "We will take action. You have to establish that they [ECI] are in violation of SC judgement. They have filed a factsheet and given the total number of BLOs deployed and BLO volunteers deployed. They have given the numbers. If you have anything contrary to this, file it," the Court remarked. Ultimately, the Bench said that if the petitioners want to file a reply to the ECI affidavit, they can do so. The case will be heard next on August 20. .The PIL petition was filed by advocates Rajesh Kumar Gogna and Ashok Agarwal challenging the ECI decision to requisition services of teachers for SIR duty.It was submitted that in several schools, the entire regular faculty was withdrawn during teaching hours and classes were left to guest teachers or to teachers of unrelated subjects.Such burden has fallen exclusively on the schools of the poor while private unaided schools remain untouched, it was alleged."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, 1951," it was stated.SIR duty is not confined to holidays or non-teaching hours and teachers have to attend full-day training sessions, undertake house-to-house enumeration during school hours, and perform data-entry and verification work over extended periods, it was pointed out.The disruption in their school work is therefore continuous and spread over weeks, not confined to a single polling day, the petition pointed out..Pertinently, the plea alleged that the requisition of teachers was discriminatory because teachers were being withdrawn from government schools, municipal schools and government aided schools but not a single teacher has been requisitioned from any private unaided school.A vast pool of staff, other than school teachers, exists in Delhi but ECI has made no attempts to quantify or exhaust them before turning to school teachers, the petitioners said.Hence, the petition said that directions should be issued to cap the requisition of school teachers at 10 percent of the regular teachers of any school.