Court dismisses plea moved by Pandiarajan

Dismissing Pandiarajan’s plea, Justice M V Muralidaran said, “The present election petition discloses material facts and especially corrupt practice and the date and place of corrupt practice have been specifically pleaded. Further, names of the persons giving bribe, receiving bribe, the place, date and time of the bribe are all pleaded. When such material facts are pleaded in the petition, the elected candidate is bound to defend himself.”

Also, holding that the DMK candidate had disclosed and prima facie established the cause of action against the applicant as per the parameters laid down by the Supreme Court, the judge said the election petition clearly made out cause of action against Pandiarajan.

“Therefore, the returned candidate was not right in seeking to strike out of some of the paragraphs in the election petition inasmuch as there are triable issues to be considered in the election petition.”

However, Justice Muralidaran made it clear that the views expressed by the court were only prima facie views and that it had not gone into the merits of the allegations set out in the election petition as the same were matter of evidence.