CHENNAI: The first bench of Madras High Court has directed the Tiruppur District Election Officer (DEO) to send within two months, a report on the educational qualification of local Mayor Visalakshi, who had allegedly furnished false particulars in the nomination papers for the 2011 civic elections to the State Election Commissioner.
In his petition, BS Manivannan, a local resident, submitted that believing the claim of Visalakshi that she was a graduate, the people had voted in her favouor in the local body elections. Details received through Right to Information Act revealed that Visalakshi, who later became the Mayor, had studied only up to 7th standard.
Petitioner sent a representation to the TN State Election Commission to conduct an enquiry on the issue. The SEC forwarded the representation to the DEO on October 7, 2014.
When the PIL came up today, the bench of Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justice MM Sundresh wondered as to why the DEO had not yet submitted his report to the SEC despite the lapse of more than 1-1/2 years.
It certainly could not take such a long time to find out the educational qualification of Visalakshi, the bench said and directed the DEO to send the same to the SEC within two months and disposed of the PIL.