5 months ago
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The Madras High Court connected Wednesday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the governments of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to guarantee strict implementation of instructions issued by the committee connected August 3, 2023, to promote persons with disabilities and the elder citizens to ballot successful ample numbers.
The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan suo motu impleaded the Chief Secretaries of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry arsenic respondents to a nationalist involvement litigation petition, and called for compliance study from some the officers by the past week of January 2026.
The judges pointed retired that the ECI had issued elaborate instructions to the Chief Electoral Officers of each States and Union Territories successful the state successful 2023 with respect to the facilities to beryllium provided to persons with disabilities and the elder citizens for their enrolment and easiness of voting astatine the polling booths.
As per the 2023 instructions, the CEOs indispensable archetypal commence identification, enrolment and mapping of persons with disabilities by collecting information from the applicable authorities departments successful bid to guarantee that nary eligible elector among them gets near behind. The CEOs indispensable besides hole polling presumption omniscient information indicating the benignant of disablement suffered by the voters.
Further, nodal officers indispensable beryllium appointed to guarantee availability of basal facilities to the persons with disabilities and specified voters indispensable beryllium fixed penchant astatine the polling booths, elector assistance booths, facilitation centres, offices of the District Election Officers, Elecroral Registration Officers, Returning Officers and truthful on. Efforts indispensable beryllium taken to guarantee that they bash not look immoderate inconvenience, the instructions read.
On issues related to instauration of infrastructure and carnal accessibility, the instructions required polling booths to beryllium located connected the crushed level of the buildings and owed information to beryllium fixed to the topography and easiness of question of electors with disabilities. Stress was laid connected ensuring due attack roads to polling stations, capable conveyance parking installation for the disabled and capable abstraction for question of wheelchairs.
It was besides made wide that imperishable ramps with a gradient not exceeding 1:12 should beryllium provided astatine polling stations. Referring to this request successful particular, the Chief Justice’s Bench made it wide that constitution of impermanent ramps by laying woody planks would not beryllium acceptable and that the governments of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry indispensable guarantee imperishable ramps successful each nationalist buildings utilized arsenic polling stations.
The Bench pointed retired that the instructions besides importune upon providing instrumentality chairs successful prime polling stations and required the officials to pass the persons with disabilities arsenic good arsenic elder citizens astir the availability of specified a installation astatine those stations. Such voters indispensable beryllium fixed precedence successful exercising their franchise and if required, a abstracted queue indispensable beryllium created for them.
The 2023 instructions of the ECI required the CEOs to guarantee that the persons with disabilities and the elder citizens were provided with escaped passes for utilizing nationalist transport connected the time of polling. “If nationalist transport is not available, past arrangements for backstage vehicles for escaped prime up and driblet installation from their residence to polling booth whitethorn beryllium made,” the instructions read.
Apart from these, the Division Bench besides directed the ECI to study advancement by the adjacent day of proceeding connected a petition made by it to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology connected November 14, 2025 to behaviour an audit of its web portals and mobile applications successful bid to find retired if they were universally accessible.
