The Delhi High Court on Friday sought stand of the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a public interest litigation challenging the large-scale deployment of government school teachers as Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and enumeration staff for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the national capital.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia directed ECI to file a short affidavit to the plea filed by Advocates Rajesh Kumar Gogna and Ashok Agarwal.

The lawyers have contended that the deployment has severely disrupted classroom teaching and infringes the fundamental rights of schoolchildren.

During the hearing today, the Bench orally questioned whether the election body can “do whatever it likes” taking the course of Article 324 of Constitution of India?

Advocate Sanjay Vashishtha for ECI submitted that the body has only requested the teachers to work after working hours or on holidays.

He said that after representations were made, ECI has permitted the teachers to work on SIR duty after school hours so that full day job and teaching at school is not hampered.

“The exercise is almost over. All endeavour has been made to ensure that no regular assignment or teaching is hampered,” he said.

The Court then asked ECI to file a short affidavit by Monday and listed the matter for hearing on Tuesday.

The petition seeks to rationalise the deployment of teachers and utilise non-teaching staff for election-related work.

It contends that entire teaching faculties in several government schools have been requisitioned for SIR duties during the ongoing academic session, leaving classes to be managed by guest teachers or teachers of unrelated subjects, while private schools continue uninterrupted.

The plea prays for quashing of orders requisitioning more than 10% of the regular teachers of any school or requiring teachers to perform election duties during school hours.

It further seeks to cap teacher deployment at 10%, schedule election duties outside teaching hours and provide substitute teachers where necessary.

Title: RAJESH KUMAR GOGNA & ANR v. ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA & ORS