CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has directed the district election officer to provide a copy of nomination papers of DMK MLA Udhayanidhi Stalin to P Milany, the unsuccessful contestant from the Chepauk-Triplicane constituency in the Assembly election.
The direction was issued by a division bench of justices GR Swaminathan and V Lakshminarayanan recently while allowing a petition filed by Milany of Theni, seeking such a direction to the district election officer since his applications were not acted upon.
“The right to contest an election has been held to be a statutory one. Similarly, the right to file an election petition is also statutory. As of now, it is governed under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951,” the bench said in the order.
It rejected the contention of the counsel for the Election Commission of India that the copies of the documents sought by the petitioner could be provided only after a period of 45 days as per a circular.
The court said if this stand of the ECI is accepted, it will affect the right of the petitioner to approach the high court with an election petition because the limitation period for filing the election petition is 45 days from the date of declaration of the results.
“The RP Act is a self-contained complete code. If an election petition is filed without supporting documents or material particulars, the purpose of approaching the court to resolve the dispute, the candidate seeks to raise, would in itself be rendered illusionary,” the bench said.
It noted that the counsel for the ECI informed the court, just before pronouncing the orders, that certified copy of the accepted nomination papers and the rejected nomination papers of Udhayanidhi along with certified copies of list of all contesting candidates and affidavit in Form 26 have been furnished to the petitioner.