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The Delhi High Court is scheduled to hear on Thursday a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the large-scale deployment of government, municipal and government-aided school teachers for Booth Level Officer (BLO) and Special Intensive Revision (SIR) duties during the ongoing electoral roll revision exercise.
The matter was mentioned on Wednesday before Chief Justice Devender Kumar Upadhyaya by Advocate Rajesh Kumar Gogna. Emphasising the urgency of the issue, Gogna submitted that the large-scale requisition of teachers during the academic session was seriously disrupting classroom teaching and affecting the education of lakhs of students. Taking note of the submission, the Chief Justice agreed to list the PIL for hearing tomorrow. The PIL has been filed by advocates Rajesh Kumar Gogna and Ashok Agarwal. It seeks quashing of orders requisitioning more than 10 per cent of the regular teachers of any school for BLO and SIR duties or requiring teachers to perform election-related work during school hours. It also seeks directions to the Election Commission of India and other authorities to ensure that election duties are assigned without disrupting classroom teaching and that the available pool of non-teaching staff is utilised before teachers are deployed. According to the petition, the wholesale requisition of teachers has resulted in severe disruption of education in government and municipal schools, with some schools allegedly losing their entire regular teaching staff to election work, while private unaided schools continue to function normally. The petition contends that this disproportionately affects children studying in government schools and violates their fundamental rights under Articles 14, 21 and 21A of the Constitution. The petition further argues that the mass deployment of teachers is contrary to the Supreme Court's judgment in Election Commission of India v. St. Mary's School and also violates the provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which require maintenance of the prescribed pupil-teacher ratio and protect instructional hours. It also refers to representations made by the Vice and Principals' Association of Delhi and by the petitioners, alleging that no corrective action has been taken by the authorities despite repeated requests for rationalisation of teacher deployment. (ANI)
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