Teachers should not perform election work in duty hours: HC

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

New Delhi, Nov 7 (UNI) The Delhi High Court today directed the Directorate of Education not to send primary school teachers to collect field information relating to electoral work during teaching hours.

Hearing a petition claiming that teachers were spending most of their time in performing election duties, the court said the teachers should only be assigned tasks, such as collecting information for electoral rolls, after office hours or on holidays and must be paid renumeration for the work.

The petition said that MCD teachers were spending time on election duties at the cost of education of students in the primary schools.

Taking exception to the ''pathetic condition'' of MCD-run schools, a bench, comprising Chief Justice M K Sharma and Justice R S Sodhi, told Director, Education Indra Yadav to take immediate steps to improve the situation. ''Why do you have to wait for people to file complaints and shed their grievances about the pathetic condition of the schools? Why can't you take timely action on your own,'' the bench said.

Ms Yadav told the court that as the MCD was a large institution with many departments, it could not devote much time to its Education department. ''There is a proposal to merge the MCD schools with the Schools run by the Delhi administration,'' she said.

The petitioners -- Ashok Agarwal and Anuj Aggarwal of an NGO Social jurist -- had placed before the court photographs of schools showing the bad condition of the toilets, blackboards, classrooms and other infrastructure. Although the MCD had pumped in money in primary schools, there was no proper infrastructure, Aggarwal contented before the court.

Ms Yadav said that her department had recently formed a public grievances cell to address the problems faced by the schools.

The court said the MCD should mend matters on its own and there would be no need for a grievance cell.

UNI

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