HC dismisses appeal by Makkal Manadu Katchi

 The Madras High Court on Monday dismissed an appeal preferred by the Makkal Manadu Katchi, challenging an order of a single judge, who had said that the party did not have any locus standi to seek a direction to election officials for accepting its candidate’s nomination in the Ilayankudi Assembly by-election scheduled for Tuesday.

In its order on the appeal, a Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice H.L. Gokhale and Justice D. Murugesan, said the single judge was perfectly correct in taking that view. That the appellant was not even a political party to which an election symbol had been allotted by the Election Commission had not been disputed by counsel.

In these circumstances, any act which would interrupt or obstruct the election process, and that too not at the instance of the candidate, should not have been permitted.

The single judge’s order was not wrong in any manner.

Allowing an appeal by the Election Commission, the Bench set aside the single judge’s order that the rejection of the nomination papers on the ground that the serial numbers of the proposers of the candidate given in the nomination paper did not tally with the serial numbers of electoral rolls was unacceptable.