Chennai, Oct 15:
The Madras High Court on Wednesday reserved its orders on a petition filed by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) founder Vijay seeking dismissal of election petitions challenging his victory from the Perambur Assembly constituency.
Justice V Lakshminarayanan reserved the orders without specifying a date after hearing the final arguments in the matter. Three petitions challenge Vijay’s victory from Perambur, while he has filed a petition seeking their dismissal.
Vijay won the Perambur seat by a margin of 53,715 votes in the April 23 Assembly elections. He also won from Trichy East but later vacated that seat, choosing to retain Perambur.
The three petitions challenging his Perambur victory were filed by voters S Dinesh and T N Lakshmi Narasimman and defeated DMK candidate R D Sekar. A separate election petition challenging his victory from Trichy East was filed by defeated DMK candidate S Inigo Irudayaraj.
During the final arguments, Vijay’s counsel, senior advocate Srinath Sridevan, contended that there was no basis for the allegations that the Chief Minister had failed to make full disclosure of his assets and liabilities in his election nomination papers.
The counsel cited Supreme Court judgments and recommendations of the Law Commission, including its 170th report submitted in 1999, which recommended the disclosure of candidates’ assets. The defence argued that the allegations against Vijay did not warrant the continuation of the election petitions.
The court had earlier agreed to hear the applications seeking dismissal of the four election petitions separately, as the cases involved certain differences despite overlapping pleadings. Arguments on the applications concerning Dinesh, Narasimman and Sekar’s petitions were heard in sequence.
The arguments were completed on October 8, following which the court reserved its orders. However, after the parties filed their written submissions, the judge reserved the orders again on Wednesday without specifying a date for pronouncement.
In a related development, two election petitions have been filed challenging the victory of PWD and Sports Development Minister Aadhav Arjuna from the Vilivakkam constituency. The petitions were filed by defeated DMK candidate Karthik Mohan and voter Sivaraj. Arjuna has also approached the court seeking their dismissal.
Vijay and Arjuna filed their applications on August 27, following a directive from the High Court. During an August 25 hearing, the court had warned that costs of Rs 50,000 each could be imposed on them for repeatedly seeking adjournments to file applications seeking dismissal of the election petitions.
The judge had pointed out that election petitions must be disposed of within six months under Section 86 of the Representation of the People Act. The court refrained from imposing costs after their counsel assured it that the applications would be filed within two days.