Madras High Court Directs State To Form Standard Operating Procedure For Political Meetings By January 5

The Madras High Court has directed the State of Tamil Nadu to take a call on the Standard Operating Procedures, which would be made applicable to all political parties for public meetings, by January 5, 2026.The bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan noted that a lot of suggestions and objections were placed before it. Having gone through the affidavits filed by the State and the submissions made by the parties concerned, the bench directed the State to take a decision considering the suggestions and objections made by the parties concerned."Having gone through the affidavit filed by the State; the draft SOP and the suggestions/objections which are placed before this court, and after pondering upon the submissions of learned counsel for the respective parties, we are of the view that the State should take a decision, one way or the other, on the suggestions/objections submitted before this court in writing, after affidavit was filed by the State Government," the bench said.The court added that if any party had objections to the SOP, they were at liberty to challenge the same by filing a separate case.The court passed orders in 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.After the draft was served on them, the parties gave their suggestions to the draft SOP. The parties 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. Case Title: Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) v. Director General of Police and Others (connected cases)Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 490Case no: WP (MD) 28971 of 2025 Click Here To Read/Download The Judgment

Madras High Court Directs State To Form Standard Operating Procedure For Political Meetings By January 5

Upasana Sajeev

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