– Mita Mukherjee

The Election Commission of India (ECI) can appoint government college teachers as presiding officers for the Assembly elections in Bengal, a division bench of Calcutta High Court ruled on Tuesday overturning a previous decision of the single bench that had set aside college teacher appointments citing lack of “unavoidable circumstances” being recorded.

The division bench of Justice Shampa Sarkar and Justice Ajay Gupta was hearing an appeal by the ECI against the single-bench order exempting government college teachers from election duties. The division bench stayed the order.

The ruling came just two days before the first phase of the Assembly elections. The two-phase Assembly polls are slated to be held in the state on April 23 and April 29.

The division bench on Tuesday observed that “In the instant case” those who have been assigned the duty of presiding officers are all government college teachers. ” Therefore, the court said “their appointment as presiding officers cannot be objected to.” The bench also questioned why the teachers were objecting when several other teachers have already complied with the ECI order.

The court on Tuesday rejected the teachers plea to be deployed as micro observers instead of presiding officers.

The court observed that college teachers had never been assigned as micro observers. It said if the teachers are assigned the duty of presiding officers that is an extremely important responsibility. The ambit of presiding officers is wider in nature. Even the sector officers are not above presiding officers, the court said on Tuesday.

“It is an admitted position that the members of the society who are allegedly aggrieved by their appointment as presiding officers are employees of colleges fully controlled by the state government. Thus, prima facie their appointment is neither illegal nor contrary to the constitutional mandate or the legislative mandate,” the court said.

On April 17, a single-bench judge of Justice Krishna Rao had rejected an order of the ECI on appointing college teachers as presiding officers but said that teachers who have already undergone training would have to work as presiding officers. The single bench had also permitted the ECI to appoint college teachers for doing other electoral duties as per their grades and pay scales.

A group of assistant professors of government colleges had challenged ECI’s order asking them to join as presiding officers for the forthcoming Assembly polls arguing that the ECI in a previous order had said that Group-A senior officers including college and university teachers should not be engaged in polling duties or polling station premises without specific reasons to be recorded by DEO in writing.

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