Madras High Court to hear on October 27 all cases related to Karur stampede

The Madras High Court is all set to hear, on Monday (October 27, 2025), a batch of cases related to actor C. Joseph Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), the Karur stampede tragedy that claimed 41 lives during his campaign on September 27 and the need to formulate guidelines/Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for all kinds of political campaigns in the future.

The first Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan is slated to hear all those cases and the first among them would be the second anticipatory bail petition filed by TVK general secretary ‘Bussy’ Anand, alias N. Anand, in a culpable homicide case booked against him by the Karur Town police pursuant to the death of 41 people.

Justice M. Jothiraman had dismissed his first anticipatory bail plea during the Dussehra vacation sitting in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on October 3. About 10 days thereafter, he had filed a second advance bail plea in the Madurai Bench on October 14 by including the Karur Town police as the respondent, though the Supreme Court had transferred the case to the CBI on October 13.

Karur stampede: A visual timeline on how the tragedy unfolded

His second petition has now been transferred to the principal seat of the High Court and listed under the caption ‘For Withdrawal’ before the Chief Justice’s Bench. Another writ petition filed in the Madurai Bench by party-in-person K. Rajan, seeking disciplinary action against Karur Collector and Superintendent of Police, has also been transferred to Chennai and listed before the first Division Bench.

Apart from these two cases, a petition filed by TVK at the principal seat in Chennai on September 16, complaining about “onerous” conditions imposed by the police for its political campaigns, has also been listed before the Chief Justice’s Bench. This petition was filed before the Karur tragedy and right then, Justice N. Sathish Kumar had called upon the State government to frame guidelines for political campaigns.

However, since the Supreme Court felt that the issue of framing guidelines/SOP must be dealt with only by a Division Bench and not a single judge, it had now been listed before the Chief Justice’s Bench along with several other individual writ petitions filed in the Madurai Bench insisting that drone surveillance, fire safety precautions, provision of drinking water and medical facilities must be mandatory during political campaigns.

Aadhav Arjuna’s petition

The Chief Justice’s Bench would also be hearing on Monday (October 27, 2025) a petition filed by TVK general secretary (election campaign management) Aadhav Arjuna for quashing a First Information Report (FIR) registered against him pursuant to his allegedly inflammatory tweet insinuating a revolt against the Tamil Nadu government by the youngsters and Gen Z as it had happened in Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Though the FIR quash petition would generally get listed only before a single judge holding the criminal portfolio, the Registry had listed this petition too before the Chief Justice’s Bench since the Supreme Court was still seized of the issue of the Karur stampede tragedy and had transferred the investigation to the CBI only by way of an interim order.

Further, a writ petition filed by BJP councillor Uma Anandan seeking a CBI probe into the Karur stampede tragedy has also been listed for hearing before the first Division Bench on Monday (October 27, 2025). Though she had filed the petition at the principal seat in Chennai during the Dussehra vacation on September 30, it got numbered only on October 8 and was not listed for hearing since then.

Since her prayer had become infructuous in view of the Supreme Court order and she was a third party to the tragedy, the Registry had listed her case under the caption ‘For Maintainability’ on Monday (October 27, 2025).