Election duty: LIC moves HC, says too busy to spare staff

The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has moved a petition before the Gujarat High Court challenging the orders of the District Election Officers (DEOs) concerned requisitioning its employees for election duty. A division bench has issued notices to the Election Commission and nine DEOs, and kept further hearing on November 8.

According to LIC counsel Maulik Shelat, as per the provisions of Representation of the People Act, such requisition orders can be passed only by the Chief Electoral Officer and not the DEO. Even the EC rules prescribe that employees of LIC should be taken while making sure that their routine work does not suffer, Shelat added. And since they are too busy at present, LIC employees cannot be requisitioned for election duty, he said.

So far, different DEOs have requisitioned more than 1,000 LIC employees for election duty.