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The Madras High Court on Sunday permitted DMK MLA and member of Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation (TESO) J Anbalagan to conduct the TESO conference, as scheduled, at 4 pm at the YMCA grounds in Royapettah.
Accepting the arguments of petitioner’s senior counsel P Wilson, a division bench comprising Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and M Venugopal gave the interim direction at a special sitting on Sunday noon, after staying the orders of the Joint Coimmissioner of Police, which refused the permission, with certain conditions.
Petitioner Anbalagan should ensure that at no point of time, during, before and after the conference the crowd in the ground should be more than 8,000 people, as stated by his counsel Wilson. Petitioner should ensure that not more than 250 vehicles were allowed inside the ground. The sound emanated from the public address system should not in any manner affect the inpatients of the Royapettah Government Hospital, situated just opposite the grounds.
The bench made it clear that the petitioner would be responsible for the maintenance of law and order in the grounds and for this purpose, he should extend all his co-operation to the police officials to ensure public safety, security and tranquility.
The bench also directed the City Police Commissioner to take all necessary steps to ensure smooth conduct of the conference and avoid any untoward incident in the locality in the best interest of the public. “Ordering notice on the writ petition, the bench posted the matter after four weeks. Since the Ministries of External Affairs and the Home Affairs of the Union government have given ‘no objection’ for the conduct of the conference, we do not prima facie see any reason to reject the permission sought for by the petitioner,” the judges said.
Earlier, Advocate-General A Navaneethakrishnan argued that the petitioner had already made arrangements to go on with the conference at an alternative place. Hence, the writ petition was not maintainable.
To this, the bench said that making arrangements at an alternative place, anticipating legal objections, did not debar the petitioner from claiming to go on with the conference at the proposed site of YMCA, where he had made elaborate arrangements, since it was within every prudent man’s knowledge that in anticipation of a casualty, if any alternative arrangement was made, the same could not be taken in a wrong sense.
Further, petitioner did not belong to a banned organisation so as to say that no meeting or conference at his instance could be permitted. The intelligence report furnished before the court was nothing but a communication emanated from the Inspector General of Police (Intelligence) (Internal Security) to the Joint Commissioner of Police, Intelligent Section, dated August 9 last. The other arguments advanced on either side could be considered at the time of final disposal of the case, the bench said.
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