The Madras High Court on Tuesday admitted an election petition challenging the victory of AIADMK’s sidelined leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran from the Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar Assembly constituency. The court also ordered issuance of notices to the returned candidate as well as the Election Commission returnable by March 27.
Justice G. Jayachandran passed the order on the election petition moved by M.L. Ravi of an outfit called Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi, one of the contestants in the by-election held for the constituency on December 21, 2017 since it had fallen vacant due to the death of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on December 5, 2016.
Initially, there was a technical hitch in numbering the election petition since petitioner’s counsel had stuck the court fee stamp on the affidavit instead of sticking it on the petition. Hence, the High Court Registry had listed the case before the judge to decide whether such a mistake could be condoned and the petition could be numbered.
The judge, in turn, directed petitioner’s counsel to place past judgments on similar issues to buttress his contention that the court was fully empowered to condone such a mistake. After submission of the relevant authorities, the judge got convinced and passed an interim order directing the Registry to number the case.
Subsequently, he found it a fit case to be admitted and ordered notices to the Chief Electoral Officer, District Election Officer-cum-Commissioner of Chennai Corporation, the Returning Officer of the constituency, AIADMK candidate E. Madhusudhanan, DMK candidate N. Marudu Ganesh and 55 others apart from Mr. Dhinakaran and the ECI.
Mr. Ravi, in his affidavit, had stated to have secured 246 votes in the by-poll as against 89,013 votes obtained by Mr. Dhinakaran out of 1,76,890 valid votes polled during the byelection. He pointed out that the returned candidate had obtained 40,707 votes more than his nearest rival Mr. Madhusudhanan who had secured 48,306 votes.
Corrupt practices
Attributing the huge number of votes obtained by Mr. Dhinakaran to corrupt practices, the petitioner recalled that an earlier notification issued by the ECI for conducting bypoll for the same constituency in April 2017 was rescinded due to complaints of largescale corruption and bribing of voters.
Then, Mr. Dhinakaran was slated to contest the by-poll as an AIADMK candidate and the allegation of corruption was primarily made against him and his partymen.
Yet, no action was taken against him and he was allowed to contest in the bypoll held for the same constituency in December 2017 and get elected, the petitioner added.
He alleged that contestants like him, who faced the elections fairly without indulging in any kind of malpractice, were not allowed to campaign freely during the elections since Mr. Dhinakaran, Mr. Madhusudhanan and Mr. Ganesh, the three high profile candidates in the bypoll, had flooded the constituency with their partymen.
The petitioner also pointed out that Mr. Dhinakaran’s supporter P. Vetrivel, a disqualified MLA, had released Jayalalithaa’s video, on a hospital bed, just a day before the polling and claimed that such a release also amounted to corrupt practice since it had a profound effect on the voters who were swayed by a wave of sympathy.
