MHAA assures Madras High Court that January 9 elections for its office bearers will be free and fair

The Teller Committee of the Madras High Court Advocates Association (MHAA) assured the Madras High Court on Wednesday that it will conduct free and fair elections to choose its office bearers on January 9, 2023 [S Mahaveer Shivaji v. The Advocate General]. .Senior Advocate MK Kabir appeared for the Teller Committee before a Bench of Justices R Mahadevan and J Sathya Narayana. He submitted that the Committee will scrutinise all applications submitted by contesting candidates to ensure that the principle of 'one bar one vote,' which permits advocates to cast their votes or contest in only one Bar association election even if they are members of several associations, is followed..The Court accepted the submissions made by the MHAA counsel and adjourned the hearing by three weeks.It said that the MHAA and its Teller Committee were bound by law to conduct free and fair elections."This is a premature petition. They (MHAA) are making a statement. If there are any violations or, if they don't implement the Division Bench order, then we are here to take care of it," the Bench said..The Bench was hearing a petition filed by lawyer S Mahaveer Shivaji alleging large scale irregularities and breach of previous directions of the High Court in the application process for the MHAA elections, which are to be conducted on January 9..In August 2019, another Bench of the Madras High Court had passed an order prescribing stringent qualification criteria for the MHAA elections.That order was challenged by several lawyers, and in October this year, a Bench of Justices Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq had 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. It had said at the time that the most important issue was conducting the elections for selecting the MHAA office bearers that had remained stalled since 2018.