Calcutta High Court reserves verdict on teacher deployment for census

The Calcutta High Court has reserved its judgment on a petition challenging the deployment of government school teachers in West Bengal for census duties. During the hearing, Justice Krishna Rao questioned the rationale of assigning teachers both teaching and census responsibilities simultaneously, noting that their primary role is education.

In response to the controversy, the West Bengal government informed the court that it is withdrawing a previous notification that required teachers to perform census work after school hours. A new notification states that teachers will only perform census duties while ‘on duty’ during school hours.

Teacher organizations have expressed concerns that deploying educators—particularly in schools already facing staff shortages—will negatively impact academic processes. The court has also previously raised questions regarding the scale of teacher recruitment for the census and whether the central government consulted the state before making these decisions.