Election Commission restrained from announcing schedule for RK Nagar by-poll

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Wednesday again restrained the Election Commission (EC) from announcing the schedule for RK Nagar Assembly by-election, this time while entertaining a writ petition from N Maruthu Ganesh (42), DMK candidate for the rescinded bypoll. “This court hopes that till the matter is heard by the first bench, EC shall not precipitate the matter relating to the announcement of election to the RK Nagar constituency,” Justice K Ravichandrabaabu said on Wednesday.

The petition sought a direction to the Centre to frame appropriate guidelines to ensure the accountability of EC for its action and inaction while exercising its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution and prevent it from notifying the byelection to the constituency without first taking penal action against those named in the Income Tax department’s report dated April 8 last, which was the basis for EC to rescind the election. He sought to hold the EC accountable for the damages suffered by him and to reimburse the loss.

His interim prayer was to restrain EC from notifying the by-election. According to petitioner’s senior advocate P Wilson, his client had spent `5 lakh towards canvassing for the by-election, besides his valuable time and energy. His expenditure had been audited and duly attested. Therefore, he was entitled for compensation from EC and prosecution of the offenders.

In fact, EC must also take moral responsibility for depriving the people of RK Nagar an elected representative, particularly when no action has been taken on the offenders who caused the election to be halted. In this connection, Ganesh had sent a detailed representation on October 21 last requesting the Commission to desist from announcing the RK Nagar by-election schedule without first prosecuting the offenders (named by IT Department’s April 8 report) and bringing them to book. Otherwise, the common man would lose faith in the electoral system and all actions of EC will lack credibility.

Justice K Ravichandrabaabu directed the Registry to place the matter before the first bench, before which similar pleas are pending adjudication. Till then, the judge hoped that EC would not precipitate the matter by announcing the election schedule.

NEET training by month-end, says govt

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday told the Madras High Court that training programmes for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) would start by this month-end. The Additional Advocate-General told this to Justice N Kirubakaran, when a petition relating to NEET came up for hearing on Wednesday. In his counter-affidavit, Health Secretary submitted that the government had proposed to identify the dynamic teachers in each and every district to give proper coaching.

‘Provide lawyer’s assistance in police stations’

Chennai: The Madras High Court has recommended to the government to make available the assistance of lawyers in all police stations in the State so that the police registered cases against offenders under appropriate provisions of law. “It is high time that every police station is given the services of a public prosecutor or advocate, who could properly advise police to invoke the correct provisions of law. Otherwise, the prosecution would miserably fail,” the Court said.