The election petition had challenged the victory of the DMK MP from Chennai Central Lok Sabha constituency in 2024.
The Madras High Court on Friday struck off almost all the paragraphs, related to allegations of electoral malpractices, from a plaint filed in support of an election petition challenging the 2024 victory of DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran from Chennai Central Lok Sabha constituency.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh held that the election petitioner M.L. Ravi of Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi had failed to substantiate his allegations and therefore, the court would have no other option but to allow the MP’s plea to order deletion of paragraphs 6 to 23 and paragraph 27 from the petitioner’s plaint.
The judge agreed with senior counsel T. Mohan, assisted by M. Sneha, representing the MP, that the Supreme Court in a catena of decisions had repeatedly held that a full-fledged trial need not be conducted on an election petition, if the pleadings were found to be unnecessary, scandalous, frivolous or vexatious. “The reason as to why so much importance is given to the pleadings in an election petition is that success of a candidate, who has won an election, should not be lightly interfered with and therefore, any election petition seeking for such interference must strictly conform to the requirements of law,” Justice Venkatesh said.
He went on to state: “Setting aside an election involves serious consequences not only for the returned candidate and the constituency, but also for the public at large inasmuch as re-election involves enormous load on the public funds and administration. Hence, unless the person, who files the election petition, pleads the entire material facts, the court has been given the power to strike off the pleadings.”
In the present case, the election petitioner had found fault with newspaper advertisements issued by DMK on the day of polling though the Election Commission of India’s model code of conduct permits publication of such advertisements if they had been pre-certified by the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee, the judge said.
Similarly, rejecting the election petitioner’s other allegation that Mr. Maran had spent approximately ₹58 lakh for printing stickers for his election campaign but had not disclosed the amount in his election expenditure, the judge said, there was no material to conclude even prima facie that the stickers were printed at the instance of the MP.
Though the petitioner had also accused the MP of having spent over ₹1 lakh towards providing breakfast, lunch and tea to the booth agents on the day of polling and not including it in his election expenditure, the judge said, the allegation was bereft of particulars and was in the nature of an assumption. “This court ultimately holds that the pleadings in paragraphs 6 to 23 and 27 require to be struck off the main election petition. Accordingly, the above original application is allowed,” he said.
Published – March 07, 2025 11:30 pm IST
