In his petition, Dhinakaran submitted that over 1,000 pages of affidavits have to be filed before the poll panel and therefore, the deadline has to be extended from October 31 to February 28, 2018. The petitioner also said that he needed more time to verify certain documents. The Election Commission had frozen the AIADMK's two-leaves symbol after two factions of the party staked claim to it. PTI file photo
The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court on Friday dismissed a plea filed by ousted AIADMK leader T T V Dhinakaran, seeking to instruct the Election Commission to grant more time to file documents in the party poll symbol case.
In his petition, Dhinakaran submitted that over 1,000 pages of affidavits have to be filed before the poll panel and therefore, the deadline has to be extended from October 31 to February 28, 2018. The petitioner also said that he needed more time to verify certain documents. The Election Commission had frozen the AIADMK’s two-leaves symbol after two factions of the party staked claim to it.
When the case came up for hearing, a division bench comprising Justices M Venugopal and Abdul Quddhose refused to instruct the poll panel to grant an extension, and dismissed the petition.
The poll body had set September 29 as the deadline for parties to file their documents. But the Madurai bench had on September 15 passed an order on a PIL, directing the poll panel to decide the election symbol case on or before October 31.
As the set time was over, the poll authority had instructed the representatives of both the factions, one led by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and the other headed by Dhinakaran, to be present in Delhi on October 6 for the final hearing.