New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to consider the plea of Christuva Nallenna Iyakkam, Chennai, for urgent listing of its appeal, seeking postponement of the Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu from April 18 to any other date. The petition is likely to be listed for hearing on April 8.
When counsel for the petitioner made a `mention’ for urgent listing, Justice S.A. Bobde, heading a Bench asked the counsel “can’t you cast your vote on a holy day? How long does it take to vote? We don’t want to advise you how to pray and how to cast vote. There is no urgency.” The petitioner’s counsel told the court that the Madras high court had dismissed their plea on March 22 and the special leave petition is directed against this order.
The petitioner submitted that the high court had rejected the plea without taking into consideration several factors. It ought to have harmonized the two aspects of the present case; firstly, the fundamental right of the Christians to do religious practice on the holy tridum which begins with Maundy Thursday and followed by Good Friday and Holy Easter on Sunday.
Secondly, the high court ought to have enabled them to discharge their fundamental duty to cast the vote in a free manner without any hindrance to their religious practices. The court ought to have rescheduled the poll date of April 18, 2019, to any other date without causing any hindrance on the Christian community to take part in their religious practices as well as casting their vote freely in the electoral process.
The petitioner pointed out that most of the election booths are situated in Christians schools and located in the church campus and if the people are not allowed to do their religious practices on the ‘holy week’ especially on ‘Maundy Thursday’ it will hurt their religious sentiments and create a problem to the whole Christian community. It said it is very difficult to make the prayer and election to go simultaneously. Further high court ought to have considered that many government employees are Christians and they have been employed in election duties. The Christians employees who are so engaged in the electoral process would not able to attend the mandatory religious service and moreover they are engaged in election duty for the whole day from the early morning till late evening and they would not be allowed to go till electronic voting machine is taken from the concerned election booths. Therefore, the officers who are engaged in the election duty would also face the serious difficulties; it said and prayed for postponement of the polls to any other date.
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