Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Friday said teachers deputed on census work would be deemed to be on school duty and clarified that they cannot refuse the assignment as the task is in the national interest.Disposing …

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Friday said teachers deputed on census work would be deemed to be on school duty and clarified that they cannot refuse the assignment as the task is in the national interest.Disposing of pleas over teachers being assigned population survey work, it said if the director of Census Operations and the Charge Officer intend to avail their services, the date, time and place of work must be specified to the head of their institution.Asserting that a teacher deputed for census work must not refuse the assignment, Justice Rao said, “Census is required to be done in national interest and nobody can avoid such work irrespective of them imparting education, particularly since they are receiving salary from the public exchequer.” The head of their institutions must allow them to go for the census work upon receiving such request from Census authorities, and make alternative arrangements with available teachers so that students are not affected, he added.Calcutta High Court asks TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee to provide documents to bank for KYC update of frozen accountThe court said that it wanted to strike a balance between two contingencies — imparting education and assisting the administration in the census work.Justice Rao also said that if teachers are on census duty, they will be deemed to be on school duty in accordance with provisions of Section 15A of the Census Act.The section ensures that population count work would not negatively impact an employee’s career, job status, or promotion opportunities.The West Bengal government informed the court on Wednesday that it had withdrawn a notification mandating teachers to engage in census work after school hours and on weekends.The court said that as per the notification issued by the West Bengal government, the Census work is to be completed within 30 days from August 16.Messi event chaos: Calcutta High Court extends interim protection to Aroop Biswas till November 30It noted that the intention of the state government is to ensure that the academic interests of students are not affected while deploying teachers on census duty.On Tuesday, the judge flagged a lack of coordination between the state and the Centre over the work schedule for teachers assigned census duty and asserted that a balance must be struck between the enumeration work and school duties.

Source: Deccan Herald