Madras High Court Rejects Election Petition Challenging One-Vote Victory Of TVK's Seenivasa Sethupathi
The Madras High Court, on Monday (September 28), rejected an election petition filed by DMK's Periakaruppan challenging the victory of TVK candidate Seenivasa Sethupathi by one vote in Tirupattur Constituency. 2026 LiveLaw (Mad) 465Justice GK Ilanthiraiyan allowed an application filed by Sethupathi seeking to reject Periakaruppan's election petition.Periakaruppan had alleged that postal...
The Madras High Court, on Monday (September 28), rejected an election petition filed by DMK's Periakaruppan challenging the victory of TVK candidate Seenivasa Sethupathi by one vote in Tirupattur Constituency. 2026 LiveLaw (Mad) 465
Justice GK Ilanthiraiyan allowed an application filed by Sethupathi seeking to reject Periakaruppan's election petition.
Periakaruppan had alleged that postal votes that should have been sent to No. 158 Tiruppattur assembly constituency were wrongly sent to No. 50 Tiruppattur constituency due to a similar constituency name and were subsequently rejected. He alleged that instead of rejecting the postal votes, they should have been sent to the correct constituency and counted. He submitted that if such postal votes were counted for No. 158 Tiruppattur constituency, the one-vote margin would not have occurred and Periakaruppan would have received a majority. He thus argued that the election procedures were not followed as per law.
It may be noted that in May this year, Periakaruppan had approached the court seeking a recount of the postal votes and to prevent Sethupathi from participating in any legislative process in the 17th Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly pending disposal of the writ petition. He had also sought direction to the Returning Officer for No 185 constituency to furnish the video footage of the mandatory reverification process in accordance with Clause 19.10.3 of the Handbook for the Returning Officer, 2023.
On May 12, the vacation bench of Justice Victoria Gowri and Justice Senthilkumar passed an interim order restraining Sethupathi from participating in the floor motion, including the confidence motion or the floor test. The court had observed that a strong prima facie case had been made out by Periakaruppan.
Soon after the High Court order, Sethupathi approached the Supreme Court challenging the interim order. The Supreme Court stayed the High Court's order, calling it “atrocious”.
Periakaruppan had later informed the Supreme Court that he wished to withdraw the plea pending in the High Court but was unable to do so since the interim order of the Supreme Court was pending. Following this, the Supreme Court discharged its interim order and permitted Periakaruppan to withdraw the plea. The Supreme Court also directed the High Court to issue formal orders for the same. Following this, Periakaruppan requested the High Court to permit him to withdraw the plea, which was allowed by the court.
In his application to reject the election petition, Sethupathi had argued that Periakaruppan had not pleded material facts, which are necessary for an election petition. It was argued that the Election Petition makes out a highly implausible scenario, since there are procedural safeguards in the law to ensure that such a situation does not arise. It was argued that the Conduct of Election Rules make the identity of the intended constituency extremely difficult to lose, since there are multiple independent identifiers which can enable the authorities to determine the constituency to which a postal ballot belongs.
Sethupathi thus argued that there was no material fact to show how the rules were violated, in a manner which could materially affect the election and/or its outcome. It was also argued that there was no basis for the allegation for exactly one postal ballot to have been received elsewhere in a similarly named constituency.
Sethupathi also argued that Periakaruppan's objections with respect to irregularity in counting of votes was raised belatedly after the declaration of results. It was argued that no such objection was raised at the time of counting of votes. Thus, it was argued that the objection was made only as a ruse to file the election petition.
Counsel for Applicant: Mr. V.Raghavachari, Senior Counsel and Mr.K.P.Anantha Krishnan for M/s.Dixita Gokil, Pranjal Agarwal, Yash S.Vijay
Counsel for respondents: Mr.T.Mohan, Senior Counsel for Mr.D.Ravichander, M/s.S.Indu Bala, Mr.C.Jayaprakash, Mr.V.Arunagiri, Mr.S.Arumugam, Mr.U.Nanmaran, Mr.V.Jayan, Mr.Niranjan Rajagopal
Case Title: R Seenivasa Sethupathi v KR Periyakaruppan and Others
Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Mad) 465
Case No: Original Application No.915 of 2026 in ELP No 34 of 2026