Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni MLA Udhayanidhi Stalin has filed an application in the Madras High Court to reject an election petition preferred against his victory in the 2021 Assembly elections. He has claimed that the petition filed by R. Premalatha, a voter from Chintadripet, was bereft of material particulars.
When the application was listed before Justice V. Bharathidasan on Wednesday, senior counsel N.R. Elango appeared for the MLA. Advocate K. Sakthivel, representing the election petitioner, said he had filed a counter to the MLA’s plea for rejecting the application but it was returned due to a minor error.
The High Court Registry had returned the counter since it had been titled as reply and not counter, the judge was told. Therefore, he directed the counsel to re-present the counter after rectifying the error and decided to commence hearing arguments on the MLA’s application on March 25.
In the plea to reject the plaint, the MLA stated that the election petitioner had challenged his victory on various grounds such as making false statements regarding the criminal cases pending against him and indulging in corrupt practices but had failed to substantiate those allegations with material particulars.
He claimed to have disclosed details of all 22 criminal cases that were pending against him before various police stations in the State for indulging in public protests. The MLA said that the election petitioner had also made a bald allegation that the presiding officer of the election was his wife’s former teacher.
“The election petitioner, however, did not aver as to how the same had affected the election. Having stated that the presiding officer acted in collusion with the applicant, the election petitioner did not state what is the collusion and what are the things done by me so that I could answer the same,” the MLA said.
In reply, the election petitioner contended that deliberate and intentional filing of a “false affidavit” had materially affected the outcome of the election, and therefore, the court must declare his election as null and void after ruling that the acceptance of his nomination form was not in accordance with law.
The election petitioner also argued that the plaint should not be rejected at the threshold and that the MLA should necessarily be made to undergo the process of trial to prove his innocence.
