CHENNAI: A vacation bench of the Madras High Court has rejected a plea to order re-poll in Ponparappi of Chidambaram Lok Sabha constituency.
More than 250 voters could not exercise their franchise due to violence on April 18 last, it was claimed.
Originally, one Vishnuraj filed a writ petition in the High Court, seeking to order re-poll in the polling booths in Ponparappi. A vacation bench rejected the plea after giving liberty to the petitioner to move the Election Commission of India, last week. Accordingly, he moved the ECI, which was said to have rejected his plea.
Hence, Vishnuraj moved the High Court again, making a mention before a vacation bench of Justices RMT Teekaa Raman and PD Audikesavalu, today.
After directing the petitioner to file an election petition after the counting was over, the bench rejected his plea. The bench also refused to entertain an oral plea for a direction to ECI to extend verification of VVPAT slips to all the booths in a constituency, if there is any discrepancy.
Refusing to accept an urgent mention in this regard by an advocate, the bench wondered as to why the petitioner waited all these days till the eleventh hour to move the court with the plea. As per the Supreme Court directions, the ECI is mandated to count VVPAT slips in any five booths in each Assembly constituency. But, there is no clear procedure to be followed to comply with the direction and the steps to be taken if there is any discrepancy found in such counting, the petitioner said.
Claiming that there are no rules in the Representation of People Act or in the directions passed by the Apex Court as to the procedures to be followed in case the VVPAT slips do not tally with the EVMs, the petitioner wanted the court to direct the ECI to extend the VVPAT verification to all the booths in the constituency.
Since the plea cannot be entertained at the eleventh hour, a day before the counting of votes, the bench rejected it.