Efforts on to let disabled contest civic polls

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government is taking steps to amend Sec 37(3)(a) of the TN Panchayats Act, 1994, to enable disabled persons like ‘deaf and mute’ to contest in panchayat elections, the Madras High Court was informed last week.When a public interest writ petition from LK Venkat of Nungambakkam seeking to quash the section which disqualified the deaf and mute from contesting panchayat elections came up before a division bench comprising Justices D Murugesan and PPS Janarthana Raja, a copy of a GO of the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department was produced before it.The GO said that the government was examining the proposal to amend the Section so as to make disabled candidates also eligible to contest in the local body elections. To amend the Section, the government was making efforts to introduce a Bill in the State legislature, the GO added.In view of the GO, the bench said that except recording the response of the government, it was not inclined to go into the various challenges made in the writ petition and closed the same.