The Madras High Court has rejected election petitions challenging the 2026 Assembly election victories of TVK leader and Tamil Nadu minister KA Sengottaiyan from Gobichettipalayam and DMK leader EV Velu from Tiruvannamalai.
Justice GK Ilanthiraiyan rejected the challenge to Sengottaiyan’s election on September 15.
Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy ruled in favour of Velu in the election petition concerning his Tiruvannamalai victory. A copy of the order is yet to be publicly made available.
The Sengottaiyan case arose from a particularly unusual objection. The election petitioner sought to unseat him on the ground that the notary who attested his Form 26 election affidavit allegedly did not have a valid certificate of practice on the date of attestation.
The Court held that even if that allegation were assumed to be correct, it was not enough to invalidate an election unless the petitioner pleaded how the defect materially affected the result. Justice Ilanthiraiyan observed,
“Mere allegation of non-compliance, without a specific averment would not by itself constitute a complete cause of action for declaring the election void.”
The Court noted that the petition did not explain how the alleged defect affected the election result. The Court, therefore. held that it failed to disclose a complete cause of action and rejected it under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
The election petitioner VB Prabhu was represented by Advocate IS Inbadurai.
Sengottaiyan was represented by Advocates C Munusamy and LP Shanmugasundaram.
Other respondents were represented by Advocates AS Ashwin Prasanna and VPK Gowtham.
Advocate Niranjan Rajagopalan appeared for the Returning Officer.
TVK candidate Arul Arumugam had challenged Velu’s election from Tiruvannamalai, where Velu won by a margin of 2,455 votes. Velu sought rejection of the petition, arguing that its allegations concerning nomination scrutiny, polling agents, postal ballots, counting and EVM/VVPATs were vague and unsupported by the material facts necessary under the Representation of the People Act.
Velu argued that allegations concerning EVMs and VVPATs did not identify the machines said to have been replaced or modified, the dates of the alleged intervention or even the statutory provision said to have been violated.
Justice Chakravarthy ruled in Velu’s favour, bringing the challenge to his Tiruvannamalai election to an end.
Velu was represented by Senior Advocate P Wilson, assisted by Advocate Richardson Wilson.
[Read Sengottaiyan Judgment]