Chennai: The Madras high court has directed the Chief Election Commissioner, the Dindigul district collector and the returning officer to appear before the court in person on January 9 in connection with a election petition filed by a voter relating to Oddanchatram assembly constituency, as they failed to appear before the court either in person or through their counsel on three occasions, despite notice was served on them.
Justice M.V. Muralidaran gave the directive when the petition filed by K. Karuppasamy, a voter, which sought to declare as void, the election of DMK candidate R. Sakkarapani from Oddanchatram assembly constituency, came up for hearing on December 23.
In his order, the judge said, “The Chief Election Commissioner, Dindigul district collector and the returning officer are served notices in this election petition, but they have not chosen to appear before this court either in person or through their counsel. Though on a few occasions (August 11 and December 17, 2016) and even today (December 23), their names were printed but they have not appeared before this court for the reasons best known to them. Therefore, they are hereby directed to appear in person before this court on January 9, 2017”.
Sakkarapani had secured 1, 21,715 votes in the May 16 state assembly election and he was declared elected by the Returning Officer. He won the election by a margin of 65,727 votes. In his petition, Karuppasamy alleged that the DMK candidate had indulged in bribing voters and tried back door methods to win the election. While submitting his election papers, he had suppressed certain facts in Form 26. His nomination papers were incomplete.
The affidavit filed by him stated that the information given was correct, but the particulars of the same were left blank, which rendered the affidavit itself nugatory, he added.
