Patna University teachers have strongly protested the district administration's decision to assign them election duty for polls to the municipal bodies next month.

The Patna University Teachers' Association filed a writ petition in the high court on Tuesday, challenging the move. According to the district administration's directive, around 200 teachers of Patna University have been made patrolling magistrate for ward councillor elections in Patna on June 4 and June 7. The association's president, Randhir Kumar Singh, and general secretary Abhay Kumar have filed the petition.

"Patna University is already facing staff crunch. Against the sanctioned staff strength of 880 teachers, only 277 teachers are working. And if 200 teachers are engaged in non-academic activities it will create problems," said Randhir Kumar Singh.

The election to the municipal bodies will be held during summer vacation at the university which closes for the holidays on June 1. But Singh said teachers are busy in evaluation and preparation for entrance tests during the time.

"Apart from teaching, during the summer vacation teachers are busy with evaluation of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. If they are diverted from evaluation work, it will delay the results," said Singh. "They also have to engage in preparation for the entrance test that is held in June."

Abhay Kumar seconded Singh. "The university teachers have a lot of work during the summer vacation, as the varsity conducts entrance test during that time. The results have to be published before the end of June so that the new academic session can commence from mid-July," he said. "If Patna University teachers are engaged in such activities, it will delay the entire process."

The teachers' association has approached Bihar's former advocate-general Shashi Anugarh Narayan and another lawyer Abhinav Srivastava to plead their case in the high court. It has also claimed that a Patna High Court judgment exempts college and university teachers from overseeing civic body elections. High court lawyer S.K. Mangalam concurred. "According to a 2009 judgment of the Patna High Court, college and university teachers are exempt from duty in civic body elections."

Patna district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Agarwal said: "We are engaging the teachers in election duty according to the direction of the state election commission. If the teachers have any judgment of Patna High Court that exempts them from election duties, we will go through it."

Sources said university teachers have been assigned election duty in parliamentary and Assembly elections but this is the first time they have been called for civic bodies' election duty.