Post office staff can’t skip poll duty, rules Bombay HC

Mumbai: The Bombay high court refused to provide any relief to Post Office employees who received notice from the Election Commission (EC) asking them to participate in the work pertaining to forthcoming Assembly elections.

The court while refusing their petition said that the EC has done no wrong by asking them to do the election work.

A division bench of Justices S.C. Dharmadhikari and Gautam Patel was hearing the petition filed by Post Office employees. According to petitioners, in July, the EC had issued a notice to Deputy Post Masters of Mumbai and its suburban area asking them to furnish details of the number of post employees in their offices to train them for the election duty.

Urging the court to direct the EC to not assign election duty to them, the petitioners argued that 1,521 is the required strength of personnel in post offices but only 768 posts have been filled hence, the employees are already overburdened with work.

The court, however, rejected the claim saying, “Post Office employees can help EC to conduct the electoral process transparently and fairly.”

The judges further noted that the postal staff would be away from their work only for some time, owing to the training session.

“It is ultimately for the postal department to manage its affairs. The training session and the election duties can both be attended and performed together with the existing work and functions by mutual adjustments,” Justice Dharmadhikari said.

The court further suggested that the Election Commission should assign work to women along with the men staff.