Can’t change polling dates, booths: Madras high court

CHENNAI: The Madras HC on Friday dismissed three PILs that demanded change of polling dates in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry or shifting of more than 2,000 polling booths located on Church premises over religious events such as Chithirai festival in

Madurai

and Maundy Thursday to be observed by Christians on April 18.


Relying on a catena of Supreme Court judgments, a division bench of Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad said that it is well settled that the writ court should not ordinarily, except in rarest of rare cases, interfere with the schedule fixed by the EC while exercising its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution.

Duty of every citizen to cooperate in election process: Madras high court“The apex court has made it clear that Article 324(1) is a plenary provision vesting the whole responsibility of national and state elections on the Election Commission of India (ECI)… the commission has to comprehend the process of election in the entire country, while conducting the elections for the parliament. It has to take into account the selection of booths, movement of para-military forces throughout the country and several other factors. Once the election schedule is fixed, it should not be interfered with, unless some event occurs, which was not in the contemplation of the election commission,” the judges said.

The bench further added that the ECI had explained the steps taken for the smooth and free elections, taking note of the difficulties, presumably felt by the petitioners and given instructions to the district election officers to consider the representations, if any made, and to redress the same. “Since the polling is fixed on Maundy Thursday, it is expected that the ECI will take adequate steps to ensure that people are allowed to pray in the churches, which are situated adjacent to the polling booths, without any hindrance. It is also the duty of every citizen to cooperate in the election process,” the judges said.

On its part,the election commission also strongly opposed the pleas saying occurrence of a religious festival or season was annual and common in our country and solely on those grounds, elections could not be shifted.

“It is pertinent to mention that,even festivals like Ramzan, Good Friday, and Mahavir Jayanthi occur during election season and the press note announcing the elections have specifically mentioned that, the schedule has been drawn after considering this aspect also,” Satyabrata Sahoo, state chief electoral officer said.

The pleas were moved by Antony Pappusamy, archbishop and president of Tamil Nadu Bishop’s Council, Madurai, S Inigo Irudayaraj, managing trustee of Christuva Nallenna Iyakkam in St Thomas Mount, and advocate S Parthasarathy of Madurai.