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Chennai, Oct 27 (IANS) The Madras High Court will on Monday hear important matters related to actor-politician C. Joseph Vijay’s TVK, the stampede at the Karur rally on September 27 that left 41 people dead and the need for a uniform standard operating procedure (SOP) to control all future political events in Tamil Nadu.
Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Srivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan’s first bench bench was headed by TVK general secretary N. It is scheduled to hear the cases starting with the second anticipatory bail plea filed by Anand (known as ‘Bussi’ Anand).
The Karur Town police had booked him for culpable homicide after the deaths in the stampede.
Anand’s first bail plea was rejected by Justice M. Jothiraman of the Madurai bench on October 3 during the Dussehra vacation. He later filed a second petition on October 14, naming the Karur Town Police as the respondent. However, since the Supreme Court had transferred the investigation to the CBI a day earlier, the petition has now been transferred to the main seat in Chennai and listed under the heading “for withdrawal”.
Additionally, the bench was originally set up by a plaintiff in the Madurai Bench. It will hear a writ petition filed by Rajan, seeking disciplinary action against Karur Collector and Superintendent of Police for alleged lapses during the rally. That case has also been transferred to Chennai.
Another petition filed by TVK on September 16, before the Karur tragedy, will also come to light. The party had challenged the police conditions imposed on its campaign events as “onerous and unfair”.
Justice N. Satish Kumar, who heard the case earlier, had urged the state government to develop clear guidelines for political meetings. Subsequently, the Supreme Court said that the task of framing such guidelines should rest with the Division Bench, thereby clubbing the matter with related petitions from the Madurai Bench seeking mandatory provisions such as drone surveillance, fire safety, drinking water and medical aid at campaign sites.
The bench will also hear the plea of ââTVK election campaign manager Aadhav Arjun, seeking quashing of the FIR lodged over alleged provocative social-media posts urging a “youth rebellion” similar to the insurgencies in Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Although such petitions are usually listed before a single judge, this case has also been tagged with division bench cases as it stems from the wider Karur tragedy context under the Supreme Court’s scrutiny.
A separate petition by BJP councilor Uma Anandan â demanding a CBI probe into the Karur stampede â will also be considered. Filed on September 30 during the Dussehra holiday, it gained relevance before the top court handed over the investigation to the CBI. The High Court has now marked it “for maintenance”, as their demand has been effectively met through the Supreme Court order.
–IANS
AL/DPB