Madras High Court reserves orders on framing SOP for political rallies, meetings

The Madras High Court, on Friday (November 28, 2025), reserved orders on a batch of writ petitions related to formulation of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to be followed during political meetings, road shows and such other large gatherings to prevent mishaps such as the Karur stampede at actor Vijay’s TVK rally which claimed 41 lives on September 27.

First Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan deferred their orders after the Tamil Nadu government submitted an exhaustive draft SOP running to 47-pages, and political parties such as AIADMK, TVK and Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi (DMSK) suggested modifications to be incorporated before the notification of final SOP.

It was Justice N. Sathish Kumar who had first mooted the idea of framing guidelines for political meets when TVK had approached the High Court on September 18 complaining about onerous conditions being imposed by the police for its political campaigns. Taking note of damage caused to public as well private properties during such meets, he wanted the government to insist on security deposits.

However, after the Karur tragedy, the Supreme Court ordered that cases related to framing of guidelines/SOP for political meets must be heard only by a Division Bench since the issue was in public interest. Subsequently, TVK’s petition, along with a few other cases, were taken up for hearing by the first Division Bench led by the Chief Justice and the government was directed to act fast.

Accordingly, the State government convened a meeting of all recognised political parties on November 6, invited their suggestions for framing the SOP and submitted a first draft before the High Court. The court, in turn, directed the government to consider the suggestions made by TVK as well as DMSK, which had not been invited for the meeting, too and submit a second draft.

Pursuant to the submission of the 47-page second draft on November 21, senior counsel Vijay Narayan for AIADMK, senior counsel P.V. Balasubramaniam representing TVK and advocate A.P. Suryaprakasam for DMSK suggested further modifications to the draft. After hearing them as well as Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran, the judges reserved their orders on the issue.