Teacher drags EC to court saying thousands on poll duty in TN denied postal ballots

TNN
Chennai: Noting that several thousand government employees on election duty were denied their right to vote using postal ballots, a school teacher has moved Madras high court for a direction to the election commission to issue them necessary ballot papers now. His PIL wanted distribution of Form 12 to all eligible government employees, who were on poll duty but could not cast their votes, before the counting of votes.
Polling for parliamentary constituencies in Tamil Nadu got over on April 18, and counting for all seats in the country is scheduled for May 23.
A vacation bench of the court, before which the PIL of K Santha Kumar, a serving as BT assistant at Government Higher Secondary School in GKM Colony, Chennai, came up for hearing on Wednesday, directed the commission Niranjan Rajagopalan to furnish all details relating to the allegations of the petitioner by May 17.
A government employee on poll duty is given Election Duty Certificate (EDC) and is entitled to cast vote in the same booth if he is a voter in the same constituency. In case poll duty is in different constituency, he is entitled to get postal ballots after submitting submit Form12.
It is the case of Santha Kumar that more than 50,000 government teachers who did poll duty on April 18 could not cast their votes because they were told by DEO that they should get permission from CEO for getting the 12-A forms. Due to the delay and rejection of requests on flimsy grounds, at least 50,000 of 6 lakh government employees deployed for election duty were denied Form 12 and 12-A.
When the PIL came up for hearing on Wednesday, counsel for ECI said he would file a detailed counter-affidavit giving all particulars with the regard to officers enrolled for election duty, number of postal ballots issued and postal ballots cast.