Tamil Nadu’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on Wednesday, May 8, 2024, informed the Madras High Court of having instructed all District Election Officers in the State to install additional closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in all strong rooms where Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) that were used in the April 19 Lok Sabha polls, have been stored.
Appearing before a summer vacation bench of Justices A.D. Jagadish Chandira and R. Kalaimathi, Election Commission of India standing counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan said the additional CCTV cameras would have a dedicated line, switch, router and a television for political party agents to view the footage.
The arrangement has been put in place in such a way that the additional CCTV cameras would continue to work even if the other cameras failed, because of technical, electrical or electronic reasons. The instructions for the additional cameras were issued on May 2 after complaints of malfunctioning CCTCV cameras reported in the Nilgiris, Erode and Tenkasi constituencies.
The Division Bench recorded the submission made by the ECI counsel while disposing of a writ petition filed by advocate M.L. Ravi of Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi. The petitioner had insisted upon constituting an expert committee headed by a retired High Court judge to find out why the snags in the strong rooms had occurred.
In his affidavit, the petitioner had stated that the CCTV cameras in some of the strong rooms in the State had suddenly stopped functioning creating a strong suspicion of foul play. Therefore, in order to instill confidence in the minds of the voters, he insisted on ordering an inquiry into the issue by an expert committee.
