CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Thursday reserved orders on a petition filed by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay seeking dismissal of an election petition challenging his victory from the Perambur Assembly constituency.

Justice V Lakshminarayanan reserved the orders after hearing arguments from Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for Chief Minister Vijay, and Advocate Ashok, appearing for voter S Dinesh and directed the parties to file their written submissions by October 14.

In the May 2026 Assembly election from Perambur, Vijay secured 1,20,365 votes, while RD Shekar secured 66,650 votes. Vijay won by a margin of 53,715 votes. Voter S Dinesh subsequently filed an election petition challenging Vijay’s election.

Vijay later filed a petition seeking dismissal of the election petition.

During the hearing, Advocate Ashok argued that any direct or indirect suppression of assets would amount to undue influence under Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act. He said whether the suppression was wilful could be decided only during the trial.

He also argued that the election officer could conduct only a summary enquiry within 24 hours of filing the nomination. Hence, discrepancies could be raised in an election petition even if no objection was made at the time of nomination.

On Vijay’s side, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan argued that non-disclosure of assets could not be equated with non-disclosure of criminal antecedents, as voters would already know that Vijay was wealthy.

He further argued that the petitioner must show that voters were actually influenced by the non-disclosure. He reiterated that the non-disclosure was not material enough to affect the election result and, therefore, the petition should be rejected.