Poll duty: HC slams EC for deploying profs

Kolkata: Calcutta High Court on Monday pulled up the Election Commission of India (ECI) for deploying assistant professors of universities and colleges as presiding officers due to the dearth of 1,000 polling staff, "At the last moment you cannot say there is a dearth… Why did you not take it into consideration before declaration of the election date?" the single judge remarked.

The ECI's counsel senior advocate Soumya Majumdar sought some time to produce a record to show that the assistant professor was appointed as presiding officer under unavoidable circumstances. Matter has been listed for hearing on April 16. A group of assistant professors moved the single judge bench of Justice Krishna Rao over being appointed as presiding officers in polling booths.

Represented by senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, their argument was the ECI in a previous order stated, "A Group - A equivalent senior officers including teaching staffs of the universities, colleges should not be drafted for ‘polling duties' without specific reasons to be recorded in writing by the District Election Officer, where such appointments have become unavoidable."

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