Hold MHAA elections within 90 days: Madras High Court

The Madras High Court Friday directed the Madras High Court Advocates Association (MHAA) to conduct "free and fair" elections to choose its office bearers at the earliest [K Sathyabal Review Applicant vs The Chairman & Members Election Committee]..A bench of Justices R Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq directed the MHAA to constitute a 'Teller Committee' and said that such committee must hold, within 90 days, the elections that has not been conducted for the past four years."The verification of the electoral role, payment of subscription and eligibility of the list of members to vote, shall be made within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order, if not already verified and the publication of the list of eligible members shall be completed within four weeks thereafter, followed by election notification, date of nomination, etc. However, the election shall be completed within a period of 90 days i.e., on or before January 12, 2023 and the result be declared accordingly," the Court ordered.The Court was hearing a review petition by advocate K Sathyabal challenging an order passed by another division bench of the High Court in August 2019 prescribing stringent qualification criteria for the MHAA elections. .The 2019 order too was passed on a petition filed by Sathyabal. In that petition, Sathyabal had raised issues of misconduct and corruption among MHAA office bearers. However, he challenged the order saying that in prescribing qualification criteria, the Court had gone beyond the scope of his petition since MHAA has a general body and its own by-laws to regulate the elections, membership etc. On Friday, the bench led by Justice Mahadevan held that while in its 2019 order, the high court had gone beyond the subject at hand, the MHAA must consider the order as an advice and implement the suggestions made in that order. However, the most important issue at present was conducting the elections for selecting the MHAA office bearers that had remained stalled since 2018, the Court obvserved."We are of the considered opinion that the conduct of the election is the need of the hour, which has been delayed unnecessarily for nearly four years. The election obviously has to be conducted with the existing bye-laws in a transparent and fair manner. The Teller committee shall conduct election at the earliest by following the existing Bye-laws of the MHAA scrupulously in accordance," the High Court said.The Court further directed that the Teller Committee must include advocates MK Kabir, CT Mohan, V Srikanth, S Devika, S Shivashanmugam, C K Chandrasekkar and C Raja Kumar as members. The Court also reminded that all members of the Bar must keep in mind that the "object of becoming an office bearer was to serve the fraternity and not to utilize it for personal benefit." Advocates K Sathyabal, N Jyothi, G Murugendran, PVS Giridhar, V Jai Bharath, R Dinesh Kumar, and R Krishna Kumar appeared for the petitioners. Advocates Dr AE Chelliah and CK Chendrasekkar appeared for the respondents. .[Read Order]