CHENNAI: A Division Bench of Madras High Court has directed the State Chief Electoral Officer, City Police Commissioner and the Returning Officer of R K Nagar Assembly constituency to submit their replies to a PIL alleging that they had wantonly omitted the names of persons mentioned in the reports of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and Income Tax Department, in an FIR registered with regard to a bribery case.
Following allegations of largescale malpractices and bribing of voters during the bypoll to RK Nagar, the ECI had cancelled the election.
While so, advocate M P Vairakannan had filed a PIL in the High Court stating that the ECI had sent a report to the State government mentioning the names of certain persons, who were allegedly involved in the bribery. But their names did not find a place in the FIR and the respective column has been left blank, he contended.
Wondering as to why the FIR is incomplete and the column had been left blank, the Bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and M Sundar on Friday issued notice to the three authorities returnable by July 14.
When the matter came up on June 19, the court had directed ECI to submit a copy of the annexure to the letter dated April 18 with regard to the electoral malpractices and the Abhiramapuram police to submit the case diary.
Accordingly, the ECI and police submitted the reports to the Bench on Friday. After going through the reports, the Bench wondered as to why the name of the accused, as mentioned by ECI and Income Tax Department, had not been included in the FIR and the column had been left blank, and asked the AG to submit the reply.