Madras High Court Reserves Orders On Pleas To Formulate SOP For Conducting Political Rallies

The Madras High Court, on Friday (28th November), reserved orders on a batch of pleas seeking to formulate a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to be followed while granting permission for political parties to conduct public meetings.

The bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan reserved orders after hearing the political parties involved in the litigation and the state of Tamil Nadu. Though Additional Advocate General J Ravindran informed the court that the State will come up with the final notification within 10 days, and that any aggrieved party can challenge the same, the court decided to pass orders in the pleas.

"We've heard all of you in detail. We'll see what can be done," the court said while reserving orders.

The court was hearing a batch of cases seeking to frame an SOP for granting permission for political events. It may be noted that the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party had initially approached the High Court seeking direction to the authorities to consider their application for permission for political meetings. On September 18, a single judge of the High Court had asked the state to frame rules that could be followed while granting permissions for all political parties. The judge had suggested that the State impose a condition, asking the parties to make a pre-deposit before seeking permission, which could then be used towards payment of compensation in case of damages.

Following the Karur Stampede, similar petitions were filed seeking to frame an SOP for political gatherings. Since the petition filed by the TVK party was already pending, a division bench of the High Court had disposed of the petitions, granting liberty to the parties to implead themselves in the pending petitions. Meanwhile, the State had also assured the High Court that it would not grant permissions for any political party's public meeting till the framing of the SOP.

Following this, the batch of pleas was placed before the bench headed by the Chief Justice. During the hearing of the pleas, the court had asked the State to come up with a draft SOP for political events. Following the Court's direction, the state convened a meeting with all recognised political parties in the State. The State also sent emails to all registered political parties, and their suggestions were also sought. 

When TVK argued that it had not been served with a copy of the draft SOP, the court directed the State to share the draft SOP with the political parties who were part of the ongoing litigation, ie, TVK, AIADMK, and the Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi parties.

When the matter was again taken up yesterday, Senior Advocates Vijay Narayan and PV Balasubramaniam, appearing for AIADMK and TVK respectively, gave their suggestions to the draft SOP. The counsels suggested that the SOP be modified to allow political parties to suggest an alternative site, to increase the time for filing the application, to notify the designated site in a website, among others. The court had directed the parties to give their suggestions in writing to the State.

While hearing the matters today, the court was informed that the suggestions had been shared with the State. Noting the same, the court reserved orders.

Case Title: A Thirukumaran and Another v. The State of Tamil Nadu (connected cases)

Case no: WP (MD) 28971 of 2025