PIL for relief workers’ protection referred to division bench

A petition seeking protection for organisations and workers carrying flood relief material for distribution to the affected people, was on Wednesday referred to a division bench by the Madras High Court.

Justice M M Sundaresh before whom the PIL filed by advocate A P Suryapraksam came up, said that the petition involved several materials involving public interest. Hence, he referred the matter to the division bench led by the Chief Justice.

The judge had on Tuesday issued notice to the Revenue Secretary, Commissioner of Chennai Corporation, Managing Director of Tamil Nadu Metropolitan Water Supply and Chairman and Managing Director of Aavin Milk Producers Society.

The judge has also directed Advocate General A L Somayaji or Additional Advocate General to appear in court and explain steps taken with regard to the charges that ruling party workers and hooligans were ‘harassing’ relief workers carrying material for stranded victims of the Chennai deluge.

The petitioner said he had submitted representations to authorities requesting them to constitute micro-level disaster management and relief-providing committees to coordinate with individual volunteers and NGOs in all flood-affected areas and claimed he had first-hand experience of being accosted by such persons from distributing food to the needy.

In spite of availability of sufficient relief material, volunteers were not able to distribute these to victims as they were clueless about where and whom to give the material to, he contended.

Unless a micro-level flood relief committee is set up in flood-affected areas, relief workers may not be able to move freely to distribute material to people in their hour of crisis, Suryaprakasam had said in his statement.