The Madras High Court on Friday (December 19, 2025) directed the Tamil Nadu government to consider the objections and modifications suggested by various political parties to a draft Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) prepared for regulating political meetings, road shows, and other such large gatherings, where more than 5,000 people are expected, and publish the final SOP on or before January 5, 2026.
First Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan desisted from ordering any changes to the draft SOP prepared by the Tamil Nadu government, as the final SOP was subject to judicial review and any change made at the court’s instance might come in the way of such a legal challenge in the future.
The orders were passed on a batch of writ petitions, including the one filed by actor C. Joseph Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), which had complained of onerous conditions being imposed by the Tamil Nadu police only for its political campaigns. After the filing of the petition, as many as 41 people had died in a stampede when the actor campaigned at Karur on September 27, 2025.
Thereafter, the government came up with a 47-page draft SOP proposing to penalise political parties and other organisers if they violate the conditions imposed by the police while permitting the conduct of public meetings, processions, roadshows, demonstrations, protests, cultural/religious events, and other public gatherings in which not less than 5,000 people were expected to participate.
Home Secretary Dheeraj Kumar said, the District Collector concerned would initiate proceedings to recover damages caused to public/private properties based on post-event reports to be submitted by the police. The action under the Tamil Nadu Property (Prevention of Damage and Loss) Act of 1992 would be in addition to criminal prosecution, he told the the Division Bench.
The draft SOP also stated it would not apply to religious gatherings organised at places of worship as customary events or where the venue/route had already been fixed by established customary precedents. However, the AIADMK, represented by senior counsel Vijay Narayan, objected to the exemption and insisted that the SOP must be made applicable to those religious events too.
Raising its objections to certain other clauses of the draft SOP, the AIADMK also insisted that the organisers of public meetings and protests should always be given the option of choosing either a designated venue or an alternative venue of their choice and not forced to conduct events only at designated venues just because the latter could accommodate the crowd expected to be attending those events.
It further insisted on giving up the condition to obtain permission from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and State Highways department and said, it would suffice if the organisers inform those authorities about the conduct of the events and obtain permission only from the Police department. The party said, the police must take a call on granting/denying permission within three days of submission of applications.
Similarly, the TVK, as well as Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi, too had made certain suggestions for modifying the draft SOP during the course of the hearing of the writ petitions. Therefore, the judges directed the government to consider all those suggestions and notify the final SOP as early as possible but not later than January 5, 2026.
