Notice On Teachers Attendance To Delhi University

The Delhi High Court has issued a notice to the Delhi University and the University Grants Commission (UGC) appealing for introducing biometric attendance system for teachers to ensure punctuality. A division bench and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw sought responses from the university and the UGC by Sept 19, the next date of hearing.

The public interest itigation (PIL), filed by an organization called Indian Council of Legal and Advice, said that the biometric system to register the attendance of lecturers and other teaching staffs should be introduced.

It said that the system should be introduced to ensure that a teacher adheres to the teaching hours and days prescribed by the UGC and the University rules. Advocate Saini, appeared for the petitioner and said the UGC in its regulations in 2010 provided that "Universities and colleges must adopt at-least 180 working days, that means there should be minimum of 30 weeks", of actual teaching.

The petition said "The working hours actually being put in by a lecturer/assistant professor/teacher in Delhi University daily are just about three and four hours". The plea said it seemed that the university was not implementing the biometric system under pressure from teachers unions. However, in 2009 the University had unsuccessfully tried to introduce the biometric system in its colleges.