The Madras High Court, on Tuesday (September 16, 2025), sought the response of Election Commission of India (ECI) to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition which complained that the ECI’s website and many polling stations were not universally accessible thereby depriving the disabled persons their valuable right to vote.
First Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan directed ECI standing counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan to take notice and file a reply within four weeks. The judges asked the ECI not to consider it as an adversarial litigation since it had been filed for a genuine cause.
‘Litigant Vaishnavi is the best person to espouse the cause’
Pointing out that the litigant Vaishnavi Jayakumar, a cross disability rights activist, was the best person to espouse the cause of the disabled, the judges took a look at some photographs produced by her counsel S. Tanvi and asked how the disabled could be expected to climb steps to cast their votes.
“We will take this matter seriously. You (ECI) have already taken many steps for making polling stations universally accessible but you must also ensure that these kind of physical accessibility barriers are removed completely wherever they exist,” the Chief Justice told Mr. Rajagopalan.
