Cal HC’s election duty relief for professors

Kolkata: Calcutta High Court on Friday quashed the requisition of state colleges' assistant professors for the duty of presiding officers in polling stations, pulling up the Election Commission of India (ECI) for not showing any "unavoidable" circumstance for their deployment despite there being an existing ECI circular.

However, this order will not apply to assistant professors who have already attained training and showed willingness to join the post.


Justice Krishna Rao in his order on Friday highlighted that repeated opportunities were given to the EC to produce any document to show the unavoidable circumstances on the basis of which the authorities have taken a decision of appointing assistant professors as presiding officers.

Rao told the EC counsel: "The EC has been preparing for the election for two years. They have to make a formulation on how it is to be done, which person has to be called for, which person is eligible for which post. All of a sudden you are sending notice… If it's a necessity, you have to make an appointment. But here you have to show what were the unavoidable circumstances."

The EC counsel told the court that there are 90,000 booths and 1,80,000 to 1,90,000 presiding officers are needed to be kept ready. Assignment of duty was given on March 19 and the writ was filed on April 8, the counsel stressed. Reliance was placed on circular of June 7, 2023, where it has been clarified that in drawing up the seniority list of officials required for election duty, the DEO should consider at the outset, the pay, rank and status of the officials nominated and classify them accordingly for the purposes of randomisation as per the detailed instructions already available.

Senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya argued: "The circular dated Feb 16, 2010, under the subject requisition of staff for election purpose wherein it is categorically mentioned that Group A equivalent senior officers including teaching staff of universities and colleges should not be drafted for ‘polling duties' in polling station premises without specific reasons to be recorded in writing by the DEO where such appointment becomes unavoidable."Get real-time updates and result insights on the CBSE 12 Result 2026.