# West Bengal withdraws teachers census duty order after court scrutiny 2026-08-19T15:59:01+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet (2 source reports) The West Bengal government has withdrawn its order requiring school teachers assigned to Census 2027 duties to work after school hours, on weekends and holidays. The withdrawal followed strong observations by Calcutta High Court Justice Krishna Rao, who questioned how teachers could manage regular classroom responsibilities alongside door-to-door census enumeration. The court had pointed to a conflict between the census authority's prescribed working hours of 9 am to 4 pm and the state's plan to have teachers do the work after school. On Friday, Justice Krishna Rao disposed of the petitions and ruled that teachers deputed for census work will be deemed to be on school duty under Section 15A of the Census Act. The court directed that census authorities must specify the date, time and place of work to the head of the institution, who must allow the teacher to go and make alternative arrangements so students are not affected. The court also clarified that a teacher assigned census work cannot refuse the assignment. The immediate dispute over after-hours work has been addressed by the state's withdrawal of the August 3 notification. However, the broader petitions challenging the deployment of teachers for census enumeration remain under consideration by the Calcutta High Court. The issue had sparked concerns among teachers over additional workload and commuting requirements, with some arguing census work should be treated as official on-duty time. ## Indian Opinion Analysis Both sources report from the same court hearings but frame the outcome differently. SOURCE-1 leads with the government withdrawing its order after court scrutiny, emphasising the court's earlier questions about workload conflict. SOURCE-2 leads with the court's final ruling that teachers cannot refuse census work and will be deemed on duty. SOURCE-1 presents the story as the state backing down under judicial pressure, while SOURCE-2 frames the story around the court asserting the state's right to deploy teachers. The middle ground: the court balanced both sides, accepting the state's withdrawal of the after-hours clause while affirming that census duty is compulsory school duty. What to watch is whether teachers comply without disruption to classes when census enumeration begins. This analysis paragraph is 122 words. ## Coverage Coverage: 2 sources, 1 government-critical, 1 neutral - timesnownews.com (government critical) Leads with the government withdrawing its order under court scrutiny, foregrounds the court questioning the state's plan. - timesnownews.com (2) (neutral report) Leads with the court ruling that teachers cannot refuse census duty, reports the order withdrawal as secondary detail. This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above. Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources. Last updated 2026-09-27T06:18:56+00:00. Tags: Calcutta High Court, Census 2027, Right to Education Act, teachers, West Bengal government Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/west-bengal-withdraws-teachers-census-duty-order-after-court-scrutiny/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/west-bengal-withdraws-teachers-census-duty-order-after-court-scrutiny/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/