MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Friday directed the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) to visit Madurai Central Prison and collect details of detenues who are willing to cast vote in the upcoming Assembly election and share the same with the prison superintendent, with further directions to the latter to forward it to higher authorities concerned to provide postal ballot facility to the detenues.
A bench of justices N Sathish Kumar and M Jothiraman gave the directions while disposing of a petition filed by a woman, M Safana Banu, seeking direction to the authorities to provide voting facility through postal ballot to her husband, N Muhamed Sirajudeen, who is detained in the prison under the Goondas Act.
The judges observed that the Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services, Chennai, had issued a circular on March 24, directing all prison authorities to collect the details of persons under preventive detention and to ascertain their willingness to vote.
However, the petitioner’s counsel alleged that in order to avoid additional duty, stereotyped responses were obtained from prisoners as if none was willing to cast vote, and the same was forwarded, which, in effect, deprived them of their right to franchise, they noted.
Holding that this amounts to denial of valuable statutory rights and undermines the democratic principles of participation and equality, the judges issued the above directions.