Vijayakant’s plea thrown to the winds

A plea from DMDK leader A Vijayakant to delete a sentence in the petition from Jayanthi challenging his election from Rishivandiyam Assembly constituency in the May 2011 elections, was rejected by the Madras High Court on Thursday.

Justice K Venkataraman, who rejected the plea, indicted Vijayakant for filing applications one after another and thereby trying to attempt to drag on this case.

Originally Jayanthi, whose nomination papers were rejected, in her election petition alleged that the election authorities had committed a number of mistakes and irregularities and that they had taken sides with Vijayakant to ensure his success, and Vijayakant wanted to strike down this sentence as no material facts or particulars had been given for the said allegation.

Justice Venkataraman said that he was unable to accept the filing of the application by Vijayakant.

He had already filed an application to reject the election petition and it was dismissed by this court on July 20 this year. After its dismissal, he had filed the present application, the judge pointed out.

Vijayakant could not file application after application to reject the election petition. Now he has filed the present application to delete a particular sentence. The sentence had to be taken as a whole and it could not be taken in part by filing applications repeatedly.

He should not give an impression to the other side that he is trying to drag on the matter endlessly, to see to it that the election petition was not disposed of at the earliest.

“Further, the applicant had also filed an application to condone the delay of 356 days in filing the counter statement, which came to be allowed by this court. Now if this application is entertained, the contention that has been raised by the election petitioner that the applicant is dragging the matter, will appear to be true. In view of the above stated position, the application stands dismissed,’’ the judge said.