Chennai, Oct 27 (IANS) The Madras High Court will on Monday take up a crucial batch of cases linked to actor-politician C. Joseph Vijay’s TVK, the Karur rally stampede that claimed 41 lives on September 27, and the need for a uniform Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to govern all future political events in Tamil Nadu.

The first Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan is scheduled to hear the matters, beginning with the second anticipatory bail petition filed by TVK General Secretary N. Anand (popularly known as ‘Bussy’ Anand).

The Karur Town Police had booked him for culpable homicide following the stampede deaths.

Anand’s first bail plea had been rejected by Justice M. Jothiraman of the Madurai Bench during the Dussehra vacation on October 3. He later filed a second plea on October 14, naming the Karur Town Police as the respondent. However, since the Supreme Court had transferred the probe to the CBI a day earlier, the petition has now been moved to the principal seat in Chennai and listed under the caption “For Withdrawal”.

Alongside this, the Bench will hear a writ petition originally filed in the Madurai Bench by a litigant in person, K. Rajan, demanding disciplinary action against the Karur Collector and Superintendent of Police for alleged lapses during the rally. That matter too has been transferred to Chennai.

Another petition, filed by TVK on September 16 -- before the Karur tragedy -- will also come up. The party had challenged what it termed “onerous and unreasonable” police conditions imposed on its campaign events.

Justice N. Sathish Kumar, who heard the case earlier, had urged the state government to evolve clear guidelines for political meetings. Subsequently, the Supreme Court observed that the framing of such guidelines should rest with a Division Bench, leading to the matter being clubbed with related petitions from the Madurai Bench that seek mandatory provisions such as drone surveillance, fire safety, drinking water, and medical aid at campaign venues.

The Bench will also hear TVK election campaign manager Aadhav Arjuna’s plea seeking to quash an FIR lodged over an allegedly provocative social-media post urging “youth rebellion” similar to uprisings in Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Although such pleas are usually listed before a single judge, this case too has been tagged with the Division Bench matters since it stems from the broader Karur tragedy context under Supreme Court scrutiny.

A separate petition by BJP councillor Uma Anandan -- demanding a CBI probe into the Karur stampede -- will also be taken up. Filed on September 30 during the Dussehra break, it gained relevance before the apex court handed over the probe to the CBI. The High Court has now marked it “For Maintainability”, as her demand has effectively been met through the Supreme Court’s order.

--IANS

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