MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to submit a copy of video footage from CCTV cameras of all counting centres in 13 districts falling under its jurisdiction, before the Registrar (Judicial) of the High Court Bench by 5 pm on January 3, 2020.
A Division Bench, comprising justices P Velmurugan and R Tharani, passed the order taking suo motu cognizance of the apprehensions made by several candidates that there would be malpractices in the counting process in rural local body election on January 2, 2020.
The candidates sought to videograph the process. Also alleging that the Registry of the court declined to number their petitions, the litigants mentioned the matter before the vacation bench.
However, the judges refused to issue directions to number the cases and criticised the litigants saying that they ought to have approached the court soon after the election schedule was announced.
Further, the counsel appearing for SEC, producing a circular issued by the commission on December 26, 2019, stated that two CCTV cameras would be fixed in each counting centre in a manner that the entire counting process would be covered.
He assured that the above arrangement was made after getting technical opinion and that it would be sufficient to monitor the counting process. Accepting the said submissions, the judges passed the above order. The 13 districts include Kanniyakumari, Theni, Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Madurai, Dindigul, Ramanathapuram, Virudhunagar, Sivaganga, Pudukkottai, Thanjavur, Tiruchy and Karur.