Overview
- The Bombay High Court granted an interim stay on May 22 that stops civic and state orders appointing teachers and non-teaching staff from over 500 private unaided and minority schools in Maharashtra for census duties.
- The Allahabad High Court issued similar interim relief on May 23 by staying a district inspector’s order that sought staff lists from aided and unaided private institutions in Gautam Budh Nagar.
- Both benches found prima facie that the Census Act and Rules do not expressly empower compulsory requisition of private-school employees and declined to treat Section 27 of the Right to Education Act as an independent source of power.
- Judges said diverting substantial teaching staff would disrupt classroom instruction and cited examples where entire or near‑entire staffs were appointed as enumerators, and they barred coercive or criminal action while the cases proceed.
- The rulings leave authorities to rely on government agencies, local bodies or aided institutions for census manpower and could prompt changes to staffing plans or legislative clarification when final hearings proceed later this year.