The Madras High Court on Monday, October 16, 2023 adjourned to November 3, the hearing on a writ of quo warranto filed against the election of the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Edappadi K. Palaniswami from the Edappadi Assembly constituency in 2021, on account of various alleged corrupt practices such as disclosing his profession only as an agriculturist and not as former Chief Minister, a position for which he was drawing a salary.
Chief Justice S.V. Gangapurwala and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy granted three weeks’ time for Senior Counsel E. Omprakash, representing the writ petitioner A. Subburathinam, a former AIADMK MLA, to submit Supreme Court judgements, if any, which permit the filing of a writ of quo warranto, instead of an election petition, on the ground of submission of wrong information by a candidate in the election affidavits.
To get today’s top stories from the State in your inbox, subscribe to our Tamil Nadu Today newsletter
The Chief Justice was of the view that a writ of quo warranto could be issued to a person holding a public office to show cause, as to under what authority he/she was holding the office, only if it was proved that he/she was not qualified to hold the office. Giving an example, he said, a writ of quo warranto could be issued if a seat had been reserved for a Scheduled Caste candidate and a non Scheduled Caste person had been elected.
The Chief Justice wondered how a writ of quo warranto could be issued against an elected representative for allegedly providing wrong information in his election affidavit, when the only remedy for this, was to file an election petition. The Chief Justice pointed out that even a voter in that particular constituency, and not necessarily another contestant, could have filed the election petition before the High Court within the limitation period.
He asked the Senior Counsel to find out if there were any Supreme Court verdicts that had permitted the filing of writs of quo warranto on the grounds of false information in election affidavits.
