Calcutta HC Raps Election Commission for Ignoring Rules in Appointing Professors as Presiding Officers

In an important order linked to the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections, the Calcutta High Court on Friday set aside the Election Commission of India’s decision to appoint assistant and associate professors from government colleges as presiding officers at polling booths. The matter came before Justice Krishna Rao after a group of professors challenged the Commission’s notification, saying they should not be made to do polling duty without proper reasons being recorded in writing.  

The dispute began with the professors arguing that the Election Commission itself had earlier said that Group A equivalent officers, including teaching staff, should not normally be deployed for polling station duties unless there were unavoidable circumstances and those reasons were written down. According to the petitioners, this rule was being ignored when the Commission ordered their deployment for election work. The High Court first heard the matter on April 13 and then asked the Commission to produce records showing why such appointments were necessary.  

When the case came up again on April 16, the Election Commission did not place documents before the court to justify the appointments and asked for more time. The court gave one more opportunity and repeated its direction that the Commission must show the basis for selecting the petitioners as presiding officers. On Friday, the court finally found that the Commission had still not produced any material showing that appointing these professors was unavoidable. 

 “This Court finds that the authorities failed to produce any document to show that due to the some unavoidable circumstances, the authorities have taken a decision for appointment of the petitioners as a presiding officer in the polling booth,” noted the Court.

It  further said, “This Court finds that the authorities, without taking any decision, has appointed the petitioners who are working as assistant professor or associate professor in different college of 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 Krishna Rao said the Commission could not bypass its own guidelines. The court held that the power to appoint polling staff is not unlimited and that the Election Commission must follow its own circulars, especially when those circulars require recorded reasons for exceptional deployment. The order said the professors had been appointed as presiding officers in violation of the February 2010 circular, and therefore the appointments were quashed.  

Senior Advocate Soumya Majumdar argued that a later circular dated June 7, 2023 had replaced earlier instructions. It also said that elections in West Bengal involve nearly 90,000 booths, so strict rank based deployment is not always possible. The Commission further argued that the petition had been filed too late and that changing the duty list at that stage could disturb the election process.  

The professors’ lawyer, Senior Advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya however, said the issue was not about stopping the election but about following procedure. He argued that the Commission had to record specific reasons before sending Group A equivalent officers such as assistant professors to polling booths. He also pointed out that, in some cases, lower ranked staff such as typists and stenographers had been appointed as sector officers while professors were being made presiding officers, which he said did not match the Commission’s own guidelines on rank, status and pay.  

During the hearing, the court also questioned how far judicial interference would affect the election process. The petitioners replied that there were enough officers in the reserve pool and that the election would not be harmed by following the correct rules. 

The Court questioned the impact of judicial intervention on the electoral process, asking,
“What will happen to the election, Mr. Bhattacharya, if any order is passed?”
Responding to concerns about disruption, Bhattacharya argued,
“No difficulty, my lord, there are huge officers in the reserve pool. The Election Commission, my lord, never recruits the officers, my lord, only with 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.”

However, the Court carved out a limited exception for those who had already undergone training and were willing to serve.

“This order will not affect the members of the society (professors) who have already undergone training in terms of the order issued by the Election Commission,” directed the Court.
It also clarified that the Commission could still assign the petitioners duties that matched their rank, pay and status, as long as it remained within the rules.  

For the professors who had challenged the move, the ruling brought relief. For the Commission, it was a reminder that election management powers must still be supported by clear reasons and proper records when normal rules are being relaxed.