The Calcutta High Court on Friday set aside the Election Commission’s order directing assistant and associate professors of government colleges to be deployed as presiding officers for the Bengal Assembly elections to be held on April 23 and April 29.
Justice Krishna Rao held that the EC had failed to justify such deployment despite repeated directions.
The court found that the central poll panel did not place any material to show that appointing college professors to polling booths was unavoidable, as required under existing guidelines.
“This Court finds that the authorities failed to produce any document to show that due to some unavoidable circumstances, the authorities have taken a decision for appointment of the petitioners as a presiding officer in the polling booth,” noted the single judge bench.
A group of assistant professors had moved the high court challenging the EC’s order directing them to join as presiding officers during the elections.
The court further emphasised that the commission’s power to appoint officials is not unfettered and must comply with its own circulars requiring recorded reasons in exceptional cases.
“This court finds that the authorities, without taking any decisions, have appointed the petitioners who are working as assistant professors or associate professors in different colleges in the state of West Bengal as presiding officers in violation of the circular dated February 2010. Accordingly, the appointment of the petitioners as presiding officers in the polling booth are set aside and quashed,” Justice Rao ordered.
The court had repeatedly enquired which circular governed the field and pressed the Commission to show documents justifying “unavoidable circumstances.”
The commission’s counsel senior advocate Soumya Majumdar had argued that a June 7, 2023 circular had superseded earlier instructions.
He said that given the scale of elections across nearly 90,000 booths, strict adherence to rank and pay parity is not always feasible.
The commission’s counsel had, during the hearing on Thursday, argued on section 26 of the Representation of People’s Act.
Section 26, which deals with the appointment of presiding officers for polling stations, states that a district election officer can appoint a presiding officer for each polling station as he thinks necessary, but will not appoint anyone who is employed by or is working for a candidate.
After hearing the arguments made by the EC’s counsel, Justice Rao said: “Then you can appoint judges as polling officers because Section 26 does not say that a constitutional court cannot be appointed. We can also go to the polling office. I am ready to go. It is not a joke, every time you are changing your notification.”
Senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, counsel for the petitioners and also the CPM nominee from the Jadavpur Assembly seat, maintained that the issue was primarily procedural.
He argued that the EC was bound to record specific reasons before deploying Group A equivalent officers like assistant professors to polling booths.
“There are huge officers in the reserve pool. The commission never recruits only one individual. They have a huge reserve pool. The election is not going to be affected, these are all imaginary apprehensions raised by the persons responsible for conducting it,” argued Bhattacharya.
The high court ordered: “This order will not affect the members of the society who have already undergone training in terms of the order issued by the EC.”
Justice Rao further clarified that the EC remains free to assign duties to the petitioners in roles commensurate with their rank, pay and status, in line with applicable guidelines.
