Plea filed in court seeking quashing of lockdown

Chennai Apr 25 () A plea has been filed in the MadrasHigh Court seeking quashing of the complete lockdown announcedby theState government for four days from Sunday in somecities and three days in some other municipal corporations.

Challenging the shutdown the petitioner submitted itwas unlawful and unconstitutional.

According to the petitioner, a day after theannouncement on April 25, all the five corporations witnessedlarge gathering of public to stock up essential commoditiesand vegetables in complete violation of social distancing.

"Only because of the sudden announcement public hasthronged markets to purchase essential Items.

When restriction under section 144 of the CrPC isalready in force across the state, this sudden announcement ofcomplete lockdown in select cities has raised suspicion amongpublic," the petitioner said.

The plea is expected to be taken up through videoconference by a bench which has been constituted to hearurgent cases from Monday.

Meanwhile the High Court Registrar Generalissued a circular stating that judicial or administrativefunction of the courts for the complete lockdown period offour days from April 26 to 29 in five corporation limitsincluding Chennai Madurai and Coimbatore and three days fromApril 26 to 28 in Salem and Tiruppur Corporations shall becarried out through video conferencing or any suchcommunication facilities only.

There shall be no physical movement of the staff onthe above mentioned days.

"The officers of the courts or any other staff, ifrequired, may communicate through video-conferencing orWhatsApp calls," it added. COR BNWELCOME BNWELCOME