CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the Tamil Nadu government to frame guidelines for collecting a “security deposit” from political parties holding large public events, to indemnify potential damage to public and private properties by party cadres.
Justice N. Sathish Kumar expressed anguish over party cadre damaging properties during such events and getting scot free without even compensating for the loss and directed Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) E. Raj Thilak to submit a report by September 24 with respect to the guidelines, which should be made applicable to all political parties as well as other organisations/associations that intend to conduct public meetings, processions and so on.
The interim direction was issued after taking note of various incidents of damage to private/public property which had been caused in the past during huge gatherings of political parties and also having regard to the fact that the sufferers/victims seldom receive compensation for the losses.
Even though the Tamil Nadu Property (Prevention of Damage and Loss) Act, 1992, and its subsequent amendment were enacted to cover private property, the provisions of the Act are not being properly implemented, the judge said in the order.
“The very object of the Act and its amendment is to make the political parties or communal or ethnic or any other group organising demonstrations/huge public gatherings to compensate the loss suffered by the victims in case of damage to public/private property,” the judge wrote.
“The statutory rules framed under the Act provide for compensation but the same has not been properly implemented for all these years. Therefore, in order to indemnify any such loss that may arise during such huge gatherings, this court is of the view that strict conditions must be imposed by way of deposit of an amount to indemnify the losses,” Justice Kumar said.
The observations were made while passing interim orders on a writ petition filed by actor C. Joseph Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) which alleged discrimination in grant of permission for his campaign. The party complained about “onerous” conditions imposed by the police only with respect to TVK events.
During the hearing, senior counsel V Raghavachari, representing TVK, argued that the police were imposing impractical conditions on Vijay’s roadshow, while permissions were being granted more liberally to the ruling party and other opposition parties.
He said the conditions included not to bring pregnant women and disabled persons. “How can we prevent them from participating in the event,” he asked. He also contended that the police were dictating the number of vehicles to be used and even deciding the return route for Vijay to Chennai.
The deponent claimed that the principles and policies of the TVK founder had drawn lakhs of people, particularly women, youth and students, to the join the party and that it had rapidly become a strong democratic force and one of the largest political parties in the State.
“The unprecedented growth of the petitioner’s party has led to resistance from a dominant political family in Tamil Nadu, which is unable to accept the rise of the TVK and has continuously sought to obstruct our democratic activities. Consequently, our cadre often face unwarranted difficulties in securing statutory permissions from the police authorities to conduct political events, despite due compliance with all legal requirements,” the party complained to the court.
The deponent said, the party’s general secretary N. Anand alias ‘Bussy’ Anand had submitted a representation to the Tiruchi Commissioner of Police on September 6 seeking permission to conduct a peaceful campaign at police notified venues on September 13 but the representation was not duly considered within a reasonable time.
After repeated follow-ups and reminders, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Tiruchi (North) granted permission on September 10 after imposing “arbitrary, onerous, and unreasonable” conditions, which virtually defeated the very purpose of holding the campaign, the party claimed.
Nevertheless, Vijay campaigned in Tiruchi on September 13 amid a huge gathering of people and the entire event was held peacefully in strict adherence to the conditions imposed by the police. Despite such demonstrated track record, the police in the State continue to impose “discriminatory and onerous” conditions only upon the TVK, while being liberal to other parties, it said.
“The leaders of the ruling party as well as the other Opposition parties are conducting regular road shows, rallies, and public meetings at places of their choice without being subjected to such unreasonable conditions. In stark contrast, whenever the petitioner party applies for permission to conduct meetings in designated areas notified by the police, onerous and impractical conditions are consistently imposed,” it added.
The party also submitted before the court a copy of the permission granted by the police to another political party with more liberal conditions, and said that it was evident that the real objective behind such restrictions was to obstruct the political campaign of the TVK at the behest of the ruling dispensation. It sought a direction to the Director-General of Police/Head of Police Force to instruct his subordinates across the State to grant permission for Mr. Vijay’s campaigns between September 20 and December 20 in a fair, uniform and non-discriminatory manner.
