The Madras High Court on Thursday (September 3) dismissed a plea filed by former Chief Minister and leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party MK Stalin, challenging the victory of Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam's (TVK) VS Babu from the Kolathur constituency in the 2026 Legislative Assembly Elections.

The bench of Chief Justice SA Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan dismissed the plea and held that it was not maintainable. On Monday (August 31), the bench had said that it would consider the maintainability of the plea.

Stalin had approached the court seeking directions to the ECI to conduct 100% counting of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips for the Constituency and to check and verify all 286 machines deployed in the constituency for the assembly elections.

Stalin submitted that immediately after the declaration of results, on May 7th, he had filed an application, along with the necessary fee, to check and verify burnt memory/microcontroller of 14 EVMs for any tampering or modification. He submitted that though the application was made at the beginning of May, the checking and verification was done only on July 29, after an inordinate delay. He submitted that out of the 14 EVMs, 2 EVMs stopped working immediately after they were taken up for checking. He submitted that the failure unequivocally calls for a technical diagnosis.

Stalin also submitted that with respect to another EVM, proper chain of custody was not followed as the address tags on the carrying cases of Ballot Units and Control Units were blank and unfilled, seals were affixed on the reverse side, among other issues. Stalin submitted that despite the lapses, the District Election Officer declared that the checking and verification process had been carried out successfully and as per prescribed procedures.

When the matter was taken up for hearing, the bench had raised a question on why Stalin had not approached the court by way of an election petition. To this, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Stalin, submitted that the ECI conducted the verification of the EVMs only after an expiry of 45 days after the declaration of election results and thus, Stalin could not have filed an Election Petition. He added that merely because the time period had lapsed, the petitioner could not have been left remediless.

Taking the court through the process of registering votes, Sibal submitted that when the ballot was pressed, a signal was sent to the Control Unit, which then sends a signal to the VVPAT. He added that in the present case, the VVPAT was placed in between, and a signal was sent to the software, which could be easily manipulated.

Senior Advocate Dama Sheshadri Naidu, appearing for the Election Commission of India, opposed the plea and argued that the petitioner was seeking a remedy that lies in an election petition, by way of clever drafting. It was argued that if Stalin had doubts regarding the machines, he should have challenged it in the beginning and now, after sleeping over his rights, he could not come to the court challenging the same.

Naidu submitted that the Supreme Court has already ruled against 100% recount, and if the same was allowed by the court now, it would open a Pandora's box, with every person coming and filing such petitions.

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr.Kapil Sibal Senior Counsel and Mr.J.Ravindran Senior Counsel for Ms.Aruna Elango and Mr.Agilesh Kumar

Counsel for Respondents: Mr.Dama Seshadri Naidu Senior Counsel and Mr.G.Rajagopalan Senior Counsel for Mr.Niranjan Rajagopalan Stdg. Counsel, Mr.V.Raghavachari Senior Counsel for M/s.Dixita Gohil, Pranjal Agarwal, and Yash S.Vijay Mr.G.Murugendran

Case Title: MK Stalin v Election Commission of India and Others

Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Mad) 425

Case No: WP 34892 of 2026