The Madras High Court on Thursday allowed an application preferred by Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Udhayanidhi Stalin and rejected an election petition filed by a voter challenging his victory in the 2021 Assembly election.
Justice V. Bharathidasan rejected the election petition filed by R. Premalatha of Chepauk because the MLA had not suppressed the criminal cases pending against him and the petitioner had not submitted any substantial material to prove alleged electoral malpractice.
The judge agreed with senior counsel N.R. Elango, representing the MLA, that there was no illegality in his client disclosing the details of the 22 criminal cases in an annexure since ‘Form-26’ only had enough space to detail three cases.
Though the petitioner’s counsel K. Sakthivel and M.L. Ravi contended that the MLA ought to have mentioned the details of three cases in Form 26 and then provided the details of the other 19 by way of an annexure, the argument did not cut ice with the judge.
He also concurred with Mr. Elango that it was enough for the candidate to mention that all 22 cases were booked for conducting agitations against the then government, and there was no need to provide a summary of each individual case while filing nominations.
On the election petitioner’s other allegation that one of the election officers was associated with the MLA and his party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the judge pointed out that the petitioner had not substantiated the allegation with material particulars to prove collusion. He held that the petitioner had not raised any substantial issue necessitating the conduct of a full-fledged trial on the election petition.
