The Madras High Court has rejected a miscellaneous plea arising out of a writ petition from DMK MP AKS Vijayan to permit him to implead himself as a party in the writ petition filed by C Kuppusamy in 2002.
Originally Kuppusamy filed a public interest writ petition for a direction to the Election Commission and other related authorities to initiate appropriate action by launching criminal prosecution against J Jayalalithaa for filing more than one nomination papers during the 2001 Assembly polls.
According to petitioner, Jayalalithaa had filed her nomination papers for four Assembly constitutencies--Andipatti, Dharmapuri, Bhuvangiri and Pudukottai. However, all her nomination papers had been rejected on the ground of disqualification arising out of her conviction in a criminal case under the PCA. Hence, she had palpably rendered herself liable for punishment under Sec 177 of the IPC, Kuppusamy had contended.
After listening to the elaborate arguments of both the sides, a division bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice R Mala re served their orders on the petition. While so, Kuppusamy died on April 19 last. Hence, Vijayan sought to implead himself as a party in the place of Kuppusamy to pursue the case.
Even when the matter went to the SC on earlier occasions, the Returning Officers had submitted two reports dated November 10 and December 14, 2001. The ROs were of the opinion that Jayalalithaa had produced two nomination papers for Andipatti and Krishnagiri. Therefore, the case of suppression of facts at the time of scrutiny could not be made out and hence they discarded the necessatity of taking any action against Jayalalithaa for giving false declaration . ‘‘ No fruitful purpose will be served by allowing the substitute petition from Vijayan,’’ the bench said.