HC appoints retd judge as poll officer for press club election

The Madras High Court today appointed Justice K Chandru, a retired judge of the court, as the election officer to conduct election to Chennai Press Club for which polls were last held in 1991.
Justice M M Sundresh, who disposed of a civil revision petition filed by Chennai Press Club and original application filed by one A Selvaraj, said, "For more than a decade no election was conducted to the petitioner-society. This is a clear fact."
The judge directed the election officer to publish the voters' list after perusal of applications for membership between March 7, 2011 and August 19, 2016.

The court also asked the election officer to take a decision in tune with bye-laws and publish the voters' list and said before publishing the list, "it is open to the election officer to follow any fair procedure, if so required".
The judge requested the election officer to complete the entire election process within a period of three months from the date of receipt of this order.
Selvaraj had sought appointment of a retired high court judge as commissioner to oversee affairs of the club and weed out bogus members, while the petition filed by club stated that there was no need for any third party to oversee the polls and members themselves would conduct it.