Kolkata: Calling the state’s requisition of eight buses of South Point High School for election duty “arbitrary”, the Calcutta High Court on Thursday quashed the requisition order under Section 160 of the Representation of the People Act, which gave the state the power to requisition “any” vehicle for polls.The officer-in-charge of Jadavpur East and RTO had requisitioned the eight school buses, which were ordered to report to duty on April 27 after school hours. The vehicles were to be released after the election, which will take place on April 29. It was argued that the only working day for schools would be April 28.Justice Krishna Rao said, “In April 2025, you took a decision which is being called internal. In your mind you decided you would engage the bus of a school. Is it not the duty to put the same across to the school? If the section gives power then the notification of March 2026 is not required. Then you made a decision and passed several orders.”The school’s counsel, Biswaroop Bhattacharyya, urged, “Kindly exempt us. We have a running school. These are junior section buses.” He said though the order of requisition was of March 11, the South Point principal made a representation for exemption on March 31. The school started the new session on April 6 and it was argued that if the buses were requisitioned, students would suffer.The state counsel submitted that Section 160 of the Representation of the People Act said that for elections, the govt could requisition any vehicle, including public. An educational institute bus (school bus) is covered under Section 2(47) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, which defines it as a “transport vehicle”. It was also submitted that 105 CAPF companies, each with at least 90 personnel, were stationed in the Kolkata Police jurisdiction. According to the EC notice and due to shortage of vehicles, the school buses were requisitioned, the state counsel said, adding vehicles were also required to ferry election officers.The counsel appearing for the DEO submitted that there was no need to inform a school before requisitioning its buses, only the order of requisition had to be sent.The HC may have spared the South Point buses election duty, private operators were not as lucky. According to Arupam Dutta of Poolcar Owners’ Welfare Association, 15 of their pool cars have been taken for election duty. “Even on Thursday, two South Point pool cars were stopped on road and requisitioned. We are asked to send the cars from April 25. Some have been requisitioned from April 27. We have told parents that we cannot provide services till April 30,” said Dutta.Anurag Agarwal, representing West Bengal Contract Carriage Owners and Operators Union, said, “Services for 17 schools are being disrupted. They are asking us for 350 buses for Malda and Jangipur between April 20 and 24 and another 900 between April 27 and 30. That will mean services to all DPS schools, New Town School and Birla High among others.” DPS Newtown principal Ambica Mehra said, “If buses are taken, we will have to shift to online classes.” Around 90 buses of the school are outsourced to a private operator. The Heritage principal Seema Sapru said, “So far, no bus has been taken. But such an order will help as without buses, we may even have to shut the school.”
