HC orders transfer of Madurai Collector over security breach

Petitioner fears Tahsildar could have manipulated records on postal ballots

S. Natarajan, who took charge as Collector of Madurai district, on Friday.

The Madras High Court on Saturday ordered the transfer of Madurai Collector S. Natarajan on a petition filed by CPI(M) candidate Su. Venkatesan, accusing the Returning Officer of inaction after a Tahsildar entered a storage room situated adjacent to the strong room containing EVMs of the Madurai Parliamentary constituency on April 20.

A Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramanioum Prasad also ordered the transfer of Assistant Returning Officer M. Guru Chandran, the Collector’s Personal Assistant (General), Mohandas, the Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) and all others responsible for the breach of security. They were informed that Tahsildar Sampoornam had already been suspended.

The court was also told that the Election Commission itself had on Saturday accepted Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo’s recommendation to transfer the Returning Officer and the Assistant Returning Officer, and had deputed S. Nagarajan and S. Shantha Kumar to those posts. The EC had also ordered initiation of disciplinary action against the two erring officials.

After recording the contents of the EC’s communication and passing orders transferring all officials concerned, the judges adjourned further hearing to Tuesday.

In his affidavit, Mr. Venkatesan stated that the Tahsildar had entered the document storage room along with a few other officials and had spent about three hours there. It was puzzling how she managed to enter the heavily guarded building of the Madurai Government Medical College Hospital, where the EVMs for the Lok Sabha polls were stored, he said.

Though party cadre demanded an explanation, the Returning Officer did not visit the spot at all. Further, the Collector gave an audience to the petitioner only at midnight, and even then, he feigned ignorance about the entry of the Tahsildar into the storage room, he claimed. “It is totally untrue as he (Collector) cannot be a person unaware of the said incident when the unlawful entrants were let off only at the intervention of some officials from his office,” his affidavit read.

The petitioner apprehended that the Tahsildar could have manipulated records related to postal ballots during her unauthorised entry into the document storage room.

His main plea was to direct the EC to constitute a special investigation team led by an officer not below the rank of principal secretary to the EC and to bring the culprits to book after a thorough inquiry. He also sought the transfer of the Returning Officer, three-tier security for counting centres across the State and a special observer in the rank of an IAS officer for counting postal ballots in Madurai constituency after thorough verification of records to find out whether the Tahsildar had manipulated any document.