State Should Bring Separate SOP For Religious Events: Madras High Court Comments While Hearing Plea To Regulate Political Rallies

The bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan was hearing a batch of pleas seeking the framing of SOPs to be followed while granting permission for political meetings.

In the previous hearing, the State had submitted the draft SOP, which was to be shared with the political parties in the ongoing litigation, ie, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), and the Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi (DMSK) party.

When the matter was taken up today, Senior Advocate Vijay Narayan, appearing for AIADMK, gave the party's suggestion to the SOP. Narayan submitted that, though by and large the party did not find problems with the SOP, some modifications could be made to make the SOP more workable.

Narayan submitted that at present, the SOP excludes religious gatherings. However, he added that there were religious gatherings that attracted a large number of crowds, sometimes even 50,000, and there should be some sort of SOP to regulate the same, to prevent such stampede-like occurrences in future.

To this, the court noted that when such events happen, the people would know that there would be a procession and must try to make arrangements for the same. The court added that the point was only to regulate such religious gatherings.

Taking note of the recent stampedes in public events in Andhra Pradesh, Bengaluru, and Kumbh Mela, the court suggested that the State could bring in a different SOP for regulating religious gatherings.

“We will say that the State shall prepare a different SOP for religious gathering. The present SOP would be made applicable only to political rallies,” the court commented.

Narayan also suggested that the SOP be modified to allow parties to suggest an alternative place, in case the anticipated crowd exceeded the notified capacity of the designated area. He also pointed out that the present SOP made it mandatory to obtain permission from the National Highways Authority and the State Highway Authority, which further made the process cumbersome.

He remarked that the ruling party might make it difficult for other parties to obtain approval, while its own public meetings would be easily approved. Instead, Narayan suggested that the Highway authorities be asked to give a written intimation to the parties regarding approval/rejection so that the party could make appropriate arrangements.

Senior Advocate PV Balasubramaniam, appearing for the TVK party, also gave the party's suggestions to the SOP. He submitted that the places which are designated in each district for conducting political meetings should be shown in the website, so that any person, even if not in the District, can know about the places.

He added that a survey could be conducted at the designated places and the capacity could be determined, including the seating and standing capacity. Balasubramaniam also suggested that, instead of completely rejecting the applications, in case the anticipated crowd exceeds the limit, the parties should be given an opportunity to scale down the number of participants.

The court asked the parties to give their suggestions in writing and adjourned the case to Friday.

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

Case no: WP (MD) 28971 of 2025