Tamil Nadu: New Returning Officers to steer Bar Council poll process to completion

CHENNAI: The Bar Council of India (BCI) has appointed a new Returning Officer (RO) to the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to complete the election process. The earlier two ROs had recently put in their papers.

According to a communication from the BCI in New Delhi on Sunday, Justice M Vijayaraghavan, a retired judge of the Madras High Court, will be the new RO. Two retired district judges G Ganeshan and Emas Siddharthar were appointed as Assistant Returning Officers (AROs) to assist Justice Vijayaraghavan.
The first and foremost duty of the new incumbents is to make arrangements for counting of the votes polled in the elections held throughout the State on March 28 and declare the results, which would be a tedious and time-consuming job.

According to the BCI communication, it was in receipt of the resignation letters of Justice G M Akbar Ali and Justice T Mathivanan, both retired judges of the Madras High Court, who put in their papers citing ill health on April 10. They were appointed months ago to conduct elections to the TN Bar Council. The Election Tribunal-1 of the council considered the resignations at the meeting held on April 12, accepted them and directed the BCI to fill the vacancies at the earliest.

In view of the urgency of the matter and after due consideration, the BCI passed a resolution on Sunday (April 15) appointing Justice Vijayaraghavan as the new RO and two other retired district judges as AROs.