The Madras high court bench here on Thursday turned down Union home minister P. Chidambaram’s plea for dismissing the poll petition against his election to Lok Sabha from Sivaganga, holding that the averments including alleged corrupt practices pertaining to dispatch of money and other illegalities committed on the date of counting, as alleged by the defeated AIADMK candidate R.S. Raja Kannappan, “do not require to be struck off at this stage”.
Justice K. Venkataraman, however. struck down two charges in the poll petition while asking the minister to face the case in respect of the remaining 27 charges. The struck-down charges alleged distribution of cash, intimidation of voters and involvement of Mr Chidambaram’s son Karti as his chief campaign agent. The court also struck down the allegation that the returning officer enlisted officials from nationalised banks for election duty and these officials “owed allegiance” to Mr Chidambaram because he had opened their bank branches in Sivaganga.
Mr Chidambaram, who won the Sivaganga seat by a thin margin of 3,354 votes, sought dismissal of Mr Kannappan’s petition with exemplary costs. He denied that official machinery was misused and said his son Karti was not his poll agent. He argued that the charges of money dispatch and of bias by poll officials were baseless and vague.
Mr Kannappan’s lawyer Saravana Kumar claimed victory, pointing out that the court had accepted all but two of the 29 charges. However, Mr Chidambaram’s counsel T. Sathyamurthy in a statement argued that the court “has partially accepted the petition (of Kannappan) and has struck out two crucial paragraphs”.
He pointed out that the case was at a preliminary stage and trial was yet to start.
“Over 100 election petitions have been filed against the members of the 15th Lok Sabha. The election petition against Chidambaram is one among them,” Mr Sathyamurthy said.