The Bar Council of India (BCI) has drawn up the schedule for elections to the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (BCTP) and appointed former Madras High Court judge G.M. Akbar Ali as the Returning Officer. As per the schedule, the election notification will be published in the official gazette, and also in two newspapers, on January 25.
Thereafter, filing of nominations should begin on February 1 and end on February 15.
The last date for withdrawal of nominations will be February 22 and the final list of candidates will be published on March 1. The BCI made clear that voting should be held on March 28 in order to comply with the deadline fixed by the Supreme Court. In a letter addressed to the BCTP secretary, BCI secretary Srimanto Sen said the decision to appoint a former judge of the High Court as the RO was taken pursuant to a request made by Advocate-General Vijay Narayan on January 15 and a similar request made by senior counsel R. Singaravelan and advocate N. Chandrasekharan the next day.
The A-G had made the request, in his capacity as the ex-officio chairman of a special committee that had been constituted to administer BCTP until the conduct of the elections, in order to ensure free and fair elections without the interference of any individual and the other two lawyers had followed suit in their capacity as members of the committee.
