State govts can assemble vote counting centres as a substitute of requisitioning medical school buildings, Madras HC tells ECI
Madras Excessive Court docket.
| Picture Credit score: Ok. Pichumani
The Madras Excessive Court docket has urged that the Election Fee of India (ECI) can ask State governments to create an infrastructure that may very well be used for storing polled Digital Voting Machines (EVMs) and in addition for counting votes, throughout each election than requisition authorities medical school buildings for months collectively and spend crores of rupees to retrofit them.
Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy have been shocked to listen to that just about ₹2 crore was to be spent for making short-term alterations to the Authorities Medical School constructing in Madurai for storing the EVMs and counting of votes throughout this yr’s Lok Sabha elections. They stated a brand new constructing may very well be constructed elsewhere within the metropolis by spending somewhat extra.
The judges additionally felt instructional establishments on the whole and medical faculties, specifically, shouldn’t be used as vote counting centres since it’d have an effect on college students for months collectively because of restrictions in motion. They stated Madurai Medical School ought to be averted at the very least from the following elections and directed the Madurai Collector to seek out out if it may very well be finished even for this yr’s election.
They directed a authorities counsel to acquire directions from the Collector by March 22. The path was issued on a public curiosity litigation petition filed by six scholar leaders of the medical school to exempt their establishment from getting used as a vote counting cente. Senior Counsel B. Saravanan stated the ECI had determined to make use of the executive block of the faculty for this yr’s election.
He stated a library was located on the bottom ground of the constructing, a pathological laboratory was situated on the primary ground and the anatomy dissection division, with freezers for storing cadavers, was performing on the second ground. Entry to all these can be hindered, he stated and identified that the assessments for sufferers of Authorities Rajaji Hospital have been finished on the pathological laboratory.
On his half, ECI counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan stated, the fee doesn’t contemplate the current PIL petition as an adversarial litigation, however it was depending on inputs from the district administration on a choice of vote counting centres because the latter is aware of the bottom scenario higher. He stated many various locations have been inspected however none of them have been discovered appropriate from each infrastructure and safety perspective.
Even the Madurai Commissioner of Police had acknowledged in writing that it will be higher to make use of the Authorities Medical School constructing for this yr’s parliamentary elections, he stated. The counsel additionally acknowledged that the faculty college students, school and different non-teaching employees can be allowed entry to the pathological laboratory within the administrative block after verification of their id.
It was delivered to the discover of the courtroom that Part 160 of the Illustration of the Individuals Act, 1951 empowers the State authorities involved to requisition any premises, car, vessel or animal for use for election functions. He stated the Authorities Medical School in Madurai had as many as 9 buildings however just one was for use as a vote-counting centre.
