‘It’s a national duty’: Karnataka High Court asks private school to recall teachers on vacation for census work

The private school in JP Nagar approached the court against an April 9 communication from the census officer that asked it to assign 140 staff members for census duty.

The school’s counsel argued that it employed only 84 teachers. Many of the teachers have proceeded on leave, are travelling out of India, and cannot be compelled as they are entitled to leave, the counsel further submitted.

Justice Magadum orally said, “How will they complete the census if schools start behaving like this?”

“It (census) happens once in 10 or 11 years. The kind of staff they need for completing the census, it has to be done manually on the ground, house-to-house visits are required.”

The counsel informed the court that 12 teachers had already been assigned census duty and had reported for work. He undertook to do his best to ensure more staff report for census duty.

The government advocate pointed out that the notice issued to the school by the census officer did not mention the staff required. She thus requested the court to direct the school to provide more details about teacher availability.

The court directed the school to provide the respondents with a list of its teachers on the next date of hearing.

The first phase of the census started with self-enumeration on April 1. This was followed by a house-to-house listing operation by designated enumerators, beginning April 16. The first phase is scheduled to be completed within a 30-day window between April and September 2026.

The census will cover 784 districts, 5,127 statutory towns, 4,580 census towns, and 6,39,902 villages.