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Synopsis

The Supreme Court today dismissed an election petition filed against DMK leader Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, who was elected as a Member of Parliament from Thoothukudi Lok Sabha constituency in 2019.

Earlier, the High Court had decided to examine a petition filed by A. Santhana Kumar challenging Kanimohi's election.

Accordingly. Kanimozhi had approached the Top Court in 2020, challenging the High Court's decision. The Supreme Court had then granted stay on the impugned decision.

Today, a bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi allowed Kanimozhi's appeal, who was represented by Senior Advocate P Wilson.

Kanimozhi had argued that the High Court erroneously relied on a petition which was “vague and without material facts”.

Wilson had argued before Supreme Court that the petitioner had not brought a single material fact to substantiate his case that Kanimozhi’s nomination was improper. Court was further told that the election petition contained hollow allegations.

Last year in August, a Supreme Court bench headed by then Chief Justice of India Justice NV Ramana had refused to vacate the stay it had granted in 2020, on Madras High Court proceedings in a plea challenging the election of the DMK leader.

A bench headed by former CJI S A Bobde had granted the said stay on January 30, 2020. Kanimozhi won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi constituency. Her election was challenged by a voter named A Sanathana Kumar, who alleged that she failed to mention her husband's Permanent Account Number (PAN) in her election affidavit disclosing family assets.

The Madras High Court had dismissed the plea by Kanimozhi seeking dismissal of the two election petitions filed by the voter and a BJP leader separately challenging her election to the Lok Sabha.

The High Court had opined that the election petition should be heard and decided. The high court had further said that the petitioner must be given a chance to adduce his evidence to prove his allegation that her nomination was wrongly accepted.

Kanimozhi had claimed that since her husband was an NRI living in Singapore, he neither possesses a PAN Card nor pays income tax in India. She had defeated BJP’s Tamizhisai Soundarrajan in the election. While Soundarrajan had also filed a plea challenging Kanimozhi’s election, she withdrew it after she was made the Governor of Telangana. 

Case Title: Kanimozhi Karunanidhi vs. Santhana Kumar