LIC employees not exempt from civic poll duties, HC says

LIC employees not exempt from civic poll duties, HC says

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad:20.02.2021

The employees of the Life Insurance Corporation Ltd (LIC) will have to render election duty as the Gujarat high court on Friday refused to stay the State Election Commission’s (SEC) order requisitioning their services for poll duty.

The court, however, has admitted LIC’s petition challenging the SEC’s powers to order LIC to deploy its employees in the civic elections. The HC will hear this issue further on April  28. LIC has claimed that although its employees fall within the ambit of Section 159 of the Representation of People Act and they can be deployed for poll duty for the Parliament and state assembly elections, but SEC does not have jurisdiction to requisition their services.

During the hearing, LIC proposed to spare 20% of its staff for poll duty, but the high court found the proposal “unreasonable”. It said that this would disrupt smooth functioning of the election at the last moment and this cannot be allowed. The Election Commission told the court that total 4.19 crore voters are to cast their votes in civic elections and it required 2.85 lakh polling staff.