Supreme Court agrees to hear DMK leader's plea challenging rejection of election petition

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea filed by DMK leader K R Periyakaruppan challenging the victory of TVK candidate R Seenivasa Sethupathi by one vote in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections held in April.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Aparesh Kumar Singh admitted the appeal filed by Periyakaruppan, who challenged a Madras High Court order that rejected his election petition against Sethupathi's victory, for hearing.

The top court asked the respondents, including Sethupathi, to file counter affidavits within six weeks.


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It directed that in the meantime, all relevant records relating to the election shall remain intact.

Senior advocate Amit Anand Tiwari, appearing for the DMK leader, said that election results were declared on May 4, which showed Periyakaruppan lost by a margin of one vote.

The high court on September 28 rejected Periyakaruppan's election petition.

Sethupathy secured 83,375 votes in the Tirupattur Assembly constituency in the elections held on April 23, one more than Periyakaruppan's tally of 83,374.

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"The high court has rejected the appellant's election petition at the threshold. It is respectfully submitted that the single judge has committed a grave error by testing the election petition on proof rather than on pleadings, without considering the crucial facts," Periyakaruppan said in his plea filed in the apex court.

The plea said the high court had allowed the application filed by Sethupathi and rejected the election petition at the threshold, without a trial.

It said that in the election petition, Periyakaruppan had contended that 306 postal ballots were rejected.

"In the present case, the margin was one vote, and the rejected postal ballots were 306. It is the appellant's specific case in the election petition that the Returning Officer-185, instead of re-verifying the validity of the ground on which each of the 306 postal ballots had been rejected, merely recounted the rejected ballots mechanically," the plea said.

It added that the purity of the electoral process requires that every vote lawfully cast be counted.