Chidambarams plea in poll case rejected

CHENANI: The Madras High Court has rejected a plea from Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to dismiss RS Raja Kannappan’s plea challenging his election from Sivaganga constituency in the May 2009 polls.Originally, Kannappan, the AIADMK candidate, filed a plea in the HC to declare the election of Chidambaram as invalid. Chidambaram filed the present application raising preliminary objections against it. Pointing out certain defects in the election petition, he sought to dismiss the plea. His senior counsel submitted that the court officer had found certain defects and returned the papers to Kannappan. After rectifying the defects, Kannappan resubmitted the papers. He also contended that the defective and improper plea could not be treated as a poll petition. Justice K Venkataraman observed that on inference, the poll petition could not be thrown out, especially in the backdrop that the returns noted by the officer concerned did not warrant the dismissal of the petition itself.  There could not be any doubt that an election petition filed with defects, which could not be curable, could not be considered as an election petition. But, in this case, the defects pointed out by the officer were not defects which were not curable warranting its dismissal. Hence, the judge  dismissed the application in limine.