CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission of India to file response to a public interest litigation petition seeking directions to the commission to ensure easy access for disabled persons in polling booths. The first bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan granted ECI four weeks time to respond.
The petition was filed by disablility rights activist Vaishnavi Jayakumar. She sought the court to issue directions to the ECI to designate/notify only the polling booths which contain all the facilities as mentioned in ECI’s document ‘Assured Minimum Facilities’ to ensure such facilities are in compliance with the specifications and space standards mandated by the Harmonised Guidelines and Standards for Universal Accessibility in India 2021.
She also sought direction to ECI to publish complete data of the polling stations and booths including location, geo-coordinates, facilities available, contact of the officers concerned on its website and publish the list of contesting candidates under Rule 10 (1) of Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 in form 7 A or 7 B and any other document uploaded on its website in accessible ePUB or HTML format.
Pointing to the submission of the petitioner’s counsel, the bench said the ECI is duty bound to provide accessibility facilities to the disabled persons.
“Polling booths are under your control during the elections, so the duty is cast upon you to provide every accessibility,” the bench told the counsel for ECI Niranajan Rajagopalan.It questioned how the disabled voters could climb up to 15 or 20 steps to get into the booths if easy accessibility is not provided.
The court has directed the ECI counsel to collect information on whether the guidelines on accessibility to the disabled is followed or not and verify certain contents of the petition and furnish the details to the court.