CHENNAI: All particulars with regard to postal votes from persons who were assigned election work, will be submitted on May 17, counsel for Election Commission told a vacation bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday.
Counsel told this to a bench of Justices C V Karthikeyan and Krishnan Ramasamy, when a PIL petition from K Santha Kumar of Madhavaram, a BT Assistant in a government school in GKM Colony, who had been assigned election work at a booth at a far away place on April 18 last, came up.
The PIL prayed for a directive to the Chief Electoral Officer to give necessary instructions to all district election officers to issue pre-filled Form-12 to those who could not exercise their franchise on account of election duty as per their database and consequently issue postal ballots at least five days prior to counting of the votes, scheduled for May 23.
EC counsel told the bench that he will file a counter with relevant particulars with regard to the persons, who were assigned election duty, number of postal ballot papers already issued and number of postal ballots already polled. Recording the submission, the bench directed the counsel to answer all the allegations raised by the petitioner by May 17.
According to petitioner, as many as six lakh persons, mostly government school teachers and police personnel, were engaged in election duty. Most of them, including the petitioner, could not exercise their franchise for want of Form-12. The officers concerned failed to issue the form in time, petitioner alleged.