AIADMK, TVK suggest changes to draft SOP for political meetings

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) as well as Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) on Thursday suggested several changes to a draft Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) formulated by the State government for public meetings, processions, roadshows, demonstrations, protests, cultural/religious events, and other public gatherings to be attended by over 5,000 people.

Appearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan, senior counsel Vijay Narayan, representing the AIADMK, pointed out the draft SOP states it would not apply to religious gatherings organised at places of worship as customary events or where the venue/route had already been fixed by established customary precedents.

Since loss of lives due to stampedes had been reported in the past not just in the State, but across the country during religious events too, the senior counsel suggested the government could either extend the present draft SOP to religious gatherings, conducted at places of worship or in customary venues/routes, too or come up with a separate SOP for those events.

In so far as the present draft was concerned, he said, the organisers of public meetings and protests should always be given the option of choosing either a designated venue or an alternative venue of their choice and not forced to conduct events only at designated venues just because the latter could accommodate the crowd expected to be attending those events.

He insisted on giving up the condition to obtain permission from National Highways Authority of India and State Highways department and said, it would be suffice if the organisers inform those authorities about the conduct of the events and obtain permission only from the police department. He said, the police must take a call on granting/denying permission within three days of submission of applications.

The AIADMK further stated the timeline for submitting the applications must be increased from 15 to 21 days, before the proposed event, so that the organisers could make arrangements in advance. When the Chief Justice wanted to know why such a timeline had been prescribed, Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran said, it was to prevent parties from blocking designated venues months in advance and not let others use them.

On his part, senior counsel P.V. Balasubramaniam, representing TVK, stated the list of all designated venues must be published on the State government’s website and that the seating as well as standing capacity at every venue must be assessed and notified. Applications must not be rejected just because the anticipated crowd was more than the capacity of a venue and instead, the number of attendees could be scaled down, he added.

Oberving the draft SOP prepared by the government was too complicated that one would get lost into it, the Chief Justice said, it could have been formulated in a much simpler fashion. He asked Mr. Narayan, Mr. Balasubramaniam and advocate A.P. Suryaprakasam, representing Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi, to make their suggestions in writing and decided to continue the hearing on Friday.