Kolhapur: The Bombay high court‘s Kolhapur bench has directed the authorities not to act upon the show-cause notices issued to teachers in Kolhapur for staying away from election training and duty.

The court was hearing the petition filed by Kolhapur District Secondary and Higher Secondary School Headmasters’ Association. The bench of justices M S Karnik and Sharmila U Deshmukh issued this directive after state govt stated that it would ensure strict adherence to the Supreme Court’s directives in the Election Commission of India vs St Mary’s School.

The directive stated that teaching staff could be assigned to electoral roll revision and election works only on holidays and non-teaching days, while non-teaching staff could be put on such duties any day. Teachers of secondary and higher secondary schools in Kolhapur objected to being assigned as booth level officers (BLOs) and the assistant electoral registration officer’s communication of July 23, 2025, asking them to report to training on July 31, 2025, between 11am and 1pm.

Taking govt’s statement on record, the HC said, “If a school faces genuine difficulty and educational activities are affected due to teacher assignments for election duty, it can write to the electoral registration officer for reconsideration.”

There were 68 teachers and 15 non-teaching staffers who were served notices by the assistant electoral registration officer as to why no FIR should be filed against them as per the People’s Representation Act.

The petitioner maintained that in some schools nearly half of the staff were requisitioned for election duty in July when the academic calendar remains full. “The school operators have to bring in new teachers to carry out the daily teaching as most of the teachers are engaged in non-teaching works. We are going to study the order and accordingly take further steps,” RY Patil, secretary of the association, said.

“It is expected that the teaching staff and the non-teaching staff shall abide by the instructions issued by the State Election Commission and its officers, which obviously shall be in consonance with the directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in ECI vs St. Mary’s School,” stated the court before disposing of the writ petition.