Court No. - 7
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 23039 of 2018 Petitioner :- Jyoti Verma And 7 Others Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Indra Pal Singh Rajpoot Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Pankaj Kumar Tyagi
Hon'ble Saumitra Dayal Singh,J.
1. Heard learned counsel for the petitioners and learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel on behalf of State respondents.
2. The present writ petition has been filed with a prayer to issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the operation and effect of the impugned orders dated 21.08.2018, 30.08.2018 passed by the respondent no. 4.
3. The solitary argument advanced by the learned counsel for the petitioners appears to be that the petitioners could not be assigned duties as Booth Level Officers for the purposes of preparation, revision and rectification of the electoral roll by virtue of the bar contained in Section 27 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.
4. For ready reference, the provision of Section 27 of the Act is quoted herein below:
"27. Prohibition of deployment of teachers for non-educational purposes- No teacher shall be deployed for any non-educational purposes other than the decennial population census, disaster relief duties or duties relating to elections to the local authority or the State Legislatures or Parliament, as the case may be."
5. It is submitted that the preparation, revision and rectification of the electoral roll is not a duty or work exempted from the purview of Section 27 of the Act. It is thus submitted that the direction requiring the petitioners' institution to make available the service of the petitioners to function as Booth Level Officers, is contrary to law.
6. The prayer made in the writ petition has been opposed on the ground that insofar as it is admitted that the petitioners have not been required to discharge duties outside their teaching hours, there is no violation of Section 27 of the Act, to that extent. This position is not disputed by learned counsel for the petitioner.
7. Insofar as it has been submitted that the assignment of duty of Booth Level Officer is contrary to Section 27 of the Act, the words used in Section 27 of the Act are wide enough to allow for assignment of duty of Booth Level Officer inasmuch as the phrase "duties relating to elections" would include each and every duty or work that may be required to be performed for the purpose of conducting a free and fair election.
8. There is no suggestion in the words used by the legislature to confine the meaning of the aforesaid phrase to polling duties alone or to any other part of the election such as may exclude the work of preparation, revision and rectification of the electoral roll.
9. In any case, the preparation, revision and rectification of the electoral roll is inherent and inseparable from the conduct of a free and fair election. The same can never be excluded from the duty relating to elections.
10. Also, a division bench of this Court in Public Interest Litigation (PIL) No. 36449 of 2016, which has been disposed of with the following observation:
"Learned counsel for the respondents, at the outset, invited our attention to the judgment of the Supreme Court in Election Commission of India Vs. St. Mary's School & Ors., (2008) 2 SCC 390 and particularly paragraph 33 thereof, and submitted that in view of the directions issued by the Supreme Court, this writ petition may be disposed of in terms thereof. Paragraph 33 reads thus:
"33. We would, however, notice that the Election Commission before us also categorically stated that as far as possible teachers would be put on electoral roll revision works on holidays, non-teaching days and non-teaching hours; whereas non-teaching staff be put on duty any time. We, therefore, direct that all teaching staff shall be put on the duties of roll revisions and election works on holidays and non-teaching days. Teachers should not ordinarily be put on duty on teaching days and within teaching hours. Non-teaching staff, however, may be put on such duties on any day or at any time, if permissible in law."
Learned counsel for the respondents submit that they shall put the teaching staff on duty on non-teaching days and within non-teaching hours, as observed by the Supreme Court in the aforementioned paragraph. Their submission is recorded and accepted.
In view thereof, nothing further survives in the writ petition. The writ petition is disposed of."
11. Considering the above, the orders dated 21.08.2018 and 30.08.2018 passed by the respondent no. 4 is hereby set-aside and for the other relief, present petition is disposed of on the same terms as are contained in the decision of the division bench.
Order Date :- 27.10.2018 Prakhar