The Madras High Court on Friday, April 26, 2024, refrained from passing any orders on a writ petition that had insisted that those wanting to contest in Parliamentary, Assembly or local body polls should be mandated to disclose their health conditions and ailments, if any, at the time of filing nominations.
The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy said they did not want to pass any kind of orders in this case in the midst of the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. The judges directed the High Court Registry to list the matter for hearing in June.
The writ petition was filed in November 2016, when former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was admitted to a private hospital. Initially, the petitioner S.V. Subbaiah of Pollachi had restricted his plea for the disclosure of health conditions only by those who wanted to contest in the local body elections that were due that year. However, on November 18, 2016 Justice N. Kirubakaran (since retired) had expanded the scope of the petition to include those who wanted to contest in Assembly as well as Parliamentary elections too and suo motu impleaded the Election Commission of India (ECI) as one of the respondents to the case.
