In a legal recourse undertaken by Six two Asst. Professor of Assam University had a respectable settlement of their grievances against the District Administration regarding appointment as Presiding Officer during Election duties. The case heard by Justice Achintya Malla Bujor Barua of the Gauhati High Court has pointed out that under no circumstances the Asst. Professors should be allowed to work under any officials who are otherwise in the hierarchy of the rank in respect of the service where the petitioners are engaged to be below that of the petitioner or otherwise junior to them during any elections.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) through its counsel has taken note of the grievances of the Asst. Professors of Assam University accepted that in subsequent elections, the Asst. Professors rank officials will only be allotted duties like Micro Observer,  Additional Micro Observer, Assembly Level Master Trainer, etc.

The Gauhati High Court was satisfied with the response of the ECI and ordered that as the respondent the ECI had taken note of the grievances of the petitioners (in this case the AU Asst. Professors), the court was in the view that no further adjudication is required.

Dr. Samira Behera, who led the legal petition along with sixty one faculties informed that the writ petition was filed on 05.04.2014 in view of the drafting of Assistant Professors as presiding officer for the elections to the 16th General Elections to the Assam Legislative Assembly held on 12.04.2014 and were directed to attend the training programme.

On receipt of their orders dated 16.03.2014, sixty two numbers of Assistant Professors approached the Cachar District Administration for reconsidering its decision, as it will lead to major academic losses in the university.

The aggrieved faculties apprised the administration of the mandatory 90 teaching days in a particular semester and that the drafting along with the training and associated activities will lead to a substantial loss of working days thereby pushing back the whole academic calendar. The teachers also brought it to the notice of the Returning Officer that drafting the teachers of the University as presiding officers for the elections is in conflict with the pay grades of other presiding officers and the teachers need to be redrafted as micro–observers/awareness observers in accordance with the guidelines of “Model Check List for Chief Electoral Officer, 2009” as well as “Checklist for District Election Officers in connection with Conduct of General Elections, 2014”.

To the utter surprise and dismay of the petitioners, the district administration in utter disregard to the aforesaid guidelines, arbitrarily and without taking into consideration the rights of the petitioners wrote back to the Registrar, Assam University, Silchar rejecting the prayer of the teachers and directed them to strictly adhere to the order of 16.03.2014 for training.

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For the greater interest of society, the teachers duly attended the training programme, and thereafter, the district administration in utter violation of the guidelines as well as the rights of the teachers went ahead with the appointment of the teachers as presiding officers.

The teachers again approached the returning officer to explain the fact that the teachers are from different parts of the country and are not fully acquainted with the procedures as well as the local languages and if they are appointed as presiding officers it will affect the entire election process as they will be unable to speak and understand the local language. It was also pointed out that almost all faculty members of some departments like Agricultural Engineering, and Information Technology, were drafted which has resulted in the total stoppage of all academic activities of those departments.

The Returning Officer even ignored the fact that in the “Handbook for Returning Officer” as prescribed by the Election Commission of India, the operational/technical staff of educational institutions falls under the exempted category.

Furthermore, the ‘Checklist for District Election Officers in connection with Conduct of General Elections, 2014’ very clearly stipulates that the employees under the Central Government cannot be drafted for the purposes of conducting duties as presiding officers and/or polling officers and they can only be drafted as micro – observers.

The teachers requested the district administration to cancel the drafting of assistant professors and redrafting the petitioners as micro–observers/awareness observers to which the district administration again turned a blind eye.

The administration also did not consider the fact that for the purpose of drafting personnel as presiding officers/polling officers the seniority of persons has to be taken into consideration, i.e., persons with higher rank and/or grade pay should not be put in the same position as a person of lower rank and/or grade pay.

In view of this grave injustice the teachers were compelled to file this writ petition and the court has sided with the views of the teachers.

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