Chennai: The Madras high court on Friday ordered notice to the Election Commission of India and the city police commissioner on a petition, which sought a direction to the ECI to take steps to file an FIR against Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and others for alleged electoral malpractices during the RK Nagar by-election. A division bench comprising Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and M. Sundar posted to July 14, further hearing of the petition filed by advocate MP Vairakkannan.
During the hearing, while taking on record the report submitted by the ECI relating to the incidents and the case diary submitted by the police, where a FIR has been filed in connection with the incidents against unknown persons, the bench said while the report of the ECI mentions three names particularly, why the police had failed to array them as accused in the FIR.
Advocate General R. Muthukumaraswamy submitted that the initial reports available with the police do not contain any names and hence the column in the FIR was left blank. The bench pointed out that even the report filed by the income tax department has mentioned many names with their mobile phone numbers. Advocate general said the documents that contain the names were paper slips. The police were investigating and verifying them.
The bench said it did not comment on the investigation. It just wanted to know why the names mentioned in the report were not reflected in the accused column. According to petitioner, he had filed the PIL based on the response from the ECI to his query under RTI. He submitted that the Commission had directed the authorities to register a FIR against Palaniswami, TTV Dinakaran and four other ministers in connection with the alleged bribing of voters in the RK Nagar assembly constituency during the by-poll.
