The Allahabad High Court has stayed the posting of Assistant Teachers of Senior Basic Schools as Booth Level Officers.
A Single Bench of Justice Siddharth passed this order while hearing a petition filed by Ankit Sharma And 13 Others.
The petitioners are Assistant Teachers in Senior Basic School under the Basic Shiksha Parishad, U.P Allahabad.
The grievance of the petitioners is that the fourth respondent has served an order thereby requisitioning the services of the petitioners as Booth Level Officer for revision of voter-list.
It is the contention of the counsel for the petitioners that such requisition is illegal and is in the teeth of the provisions of section 27 of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education, 2009 which provides that no teacher shall be deployed for any non educational purposes other than the decennial population census, disaster relief duties or duties relating to elections to the local authority, or to the State legislatures or Parliament, as the case may be.
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It has been submitted that the revision of the voter-list does not fall in any of those categories because that does not relate to decennial population census and as the elections have not yet been notified, therefore, the deployment, as directed, is illegal and is in the teeth of the provisions of Section 27 of the RTE Act, 2009. In support of the aforesaid submission, reliance has also been placed on a Division Bench decision of this Court in Sunita Sharma v. State of U.P. and others : 2015 (3) ESC 1289 (All) (DB).
The Court said that the matter requires consideration and granted three weeks time to file a counter-affidavit to the respondents.
“In the meantime, the petitioners shall not be forced to perform duties as a Booth Level Officer”, the Court ordered.