The Madras High Court has asked the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer, the T.N. government and the Madurai district administration to spare the Government Madurai Medical College from being used as a vote counting centre during future elections.
Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy agreed with six student leaders, who had approached the court, stating that the use of the college building as a vote counting centre for more than a month would cause inconvenience to the students and staff.
However, since it was too late in the day to direct the ECI to find another vote counting centre for the Madurai parliamentary constituency during this year’s general elections, the judges said, they expected the centre to be shifted out of the medical college during future elections.
The orders were passed while disposing of a writ petition filed by the college’s student council president M. Raj Mohamed, vice-president B. Yalini, general secretaries Alwin John and J. Anamika, men’s hostel general secretary U.S. Kamalesh and women’s hostel general secretary Swernarekha.
Representing them, senior counsel B. Saravanan had argued that the Government Madurai Medical College was a premier institution whose students and staff were being subjected to large-scale difficulties due to the use of its building as a vote counting centre during elections.
Mr. Saravanan said, the academic interest of the students gets jeopardised and the day-to-day activities of the institution were crippled since the pathology lab, anatomy department and library were located in the administrative building which was being used as a vote counting centre.
On the other hand, ECI counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan said the medical college had been serving as a vote counting centre since 1998 and it was a preferred location, from both the logistical and security point of view, to serve as a single venue for counting of votes during the general elections.
He said the district administration had inspected 12 other buildings, including the American College and the World Tamil Sangam, in Madurai city to shift the vote counting centre for this year’s Parliamentary polls but none of them were found suitable for the purpose.
After hearing both sides, the judges wrote: “We may hasten to add that the apprehension expressed by learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners is not unfounded... At the time of entry, every student and staff member will have to show his/her identity card. The said arrangement is not for a day or two but for almost one and a half months.”
Since the ECI would take possession of the college building a week before polling day on April 19 and give it back only after the counting of votes on June 4, the Bench said: “Certainly, the students and the staff would be facing lot of difficulty. The respondents can consider other venues and/or buildings for using them as counting centres in future. Madurai is not a small city. It has various government buildings and institutions.”
