Permission for political rallies cannot be refused citing hindrance to traffic: Madras High Court

Mere hindrance to traffic and free movement of people by itself cannot be a ground to reject permission for political rallies, the Madras High Court recently held..In an order passed on April 7, Justice K Murali Shankar of the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court directed the Trichy police and the Assistant Election Officer concerned to permit Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National President JP Nadda for a 2.5 hour long political rally in Tamil Nadu's Trichy. The judge passed the order in a special Sunday hearing after a plea was moved by BJP district secretary Rajasekaran challenging an April 6 order of the Assistant Election Officer of the Tiruchirapalli Lok Sabha Constituency that had denied permission for Nadda’s rally citing potential traffic chaos.“Just because there would be some hindrance for the traffic and free movement of the people, that by itself is not a ground to reject the permission. The petitioner is directed to comply with the conditions imposed by the respondents and all the parties are directed to ensure that the rally takes place peacefully without giving rise to any law and order problem,” the Court said..The police and the local authorities had told the Court that Nadda’s rally, scheduled for April 7, was likely to cause obstruction to traffic movement in Trichy given that a temple festival was going on. The authorities had also said that there would be many people and vehicles on the roads in the evenings due to Ramzan.Justice Murali Shankar, however, said that was not a good ground to deny permission for such a rally, as long as the rally was peaceful and did not cause any law and order problem..The petitioner submitted that the police had raised some initial concerns around Nadda’s security and crowd management and the party had accordingly tweaked its route plan to ensure there was no inconvenience caused to anyone.The Court took note of the submissions and set aside the Assistant Election Officer’s order that had refused permission for the rally..Advocate Niranjan S Kumar appeared for Rajasekaran, the petitioner. Additional Advocate General R Basakaran appeared for the Assistant Election Officer, Trichy.Additional Public Prosecutor T Senthilkumar appeared for the respondent police..[Read Order]