Spare MMC from being used as vote counting centre in future: HC

Students said using the college building would cause inconvenience to them and staff; court said it was too late to ask ECI to find another centre

The Madras High Court has asked the Election Commission of India (ECI), Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer, State government and the Madurai district administration to spare Government Madurai Medical College (MMC) from being used as a vote counting centre during future elections.

Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy agreed with six student leaders, who had approached the court, stating that the use of the college building as a vote counting centre for more than a month would cause inconvenience to the students and staff.

However, since it was too late to direct the ECI to find another counting centre for the Madurai Parliamentary constituency during this year’s general elections, the judges said they expected the centre to be shifted out of the medical college during future elections.

The orders were passed while disposing of a writ petition filed by college student council president M. Raj Mohamed, vicepresident B. Yalini, general secretaries Alwin John and J. Anamika, men’s hostel general secretary U.S. Kamalesh and women’s hostel general secretary Swernarekha.

Representing them, senior counsel B. Saravanan argued that the MMC was a premier institution whose students and staff were being subjected to largescale difficulties due to the use of its building as a vote counting centre.

Mr. Saravanan said the academic interest of the students got jeopardised and the daytoday activities of the institution were crippled since the pathology lab, anatomy department and library were located in the administrative building which was being used as a counting centre.

ECI counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan said the college had been serving as a counting centre since 1998 and it was a preferred location, from logistical and security points of view to serve as a single venue for counting of votes.

He said the district administration had inspected 12 other buildings, including The American College and World Tamil Sangam in Madurai city to shift the counting centre for this Parliamentary polls but none of them were found suitable.

Since the ECI would take possession of the college building a week before the polling day (April 19) and give it back only after the counting of votes on June 4, the Bench said: “Certainly, the students and the staff would be facing lot of difficulty. The respondents can consider other venues and/or buildings for using them as counting centres in future. Madurai is not a small city. It has various government buildings and institutions.”