Madras High Court rejects MP Stalin’s plea to declare him elected from Kolathur constituency

MK Stalin. File | Photo credit: ANI

The Madras High Court on Thursday (September 3, 2026) dismissed as unsustainable a motion by DMK president MK Stalin to order 100% counting of VVPAT tickets of Kolathur Assembly constituency and subsequently declare it elected after annulling the victory of TVK MLA VS Babu.

A bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan refused to entertain the writ petition after the Election Commission of India (ECI) argued that a candidate’s victory can be challenged only through an election petition and not through a writ petition.

Senior counsel G. Rajagopalan and Dama Seshadri Naidu, appearing for the ECI, argued that allowing a candidate to challenge the MLA’s election through a writ petition would open a pandora’s box, with the court being flooded with similar writ petitions from many other candidates.

Stalin’s plea

On the other hand, Mr. Stalin claimed that he could not file the election petition within the statutory period of 45 days because the ECI had delayed the inspection and verification of the burned memory/microcontroller in 5% of the EVMs used in Kolathur by a team of EVM manufacturers’ engineers.

The former chief minister said he had sought verification of 14 of the 286 EVMs used in Kolathur based on the Supreme Court’s 2024 verdict, which allows a second or third election holder to seek verification of 5% of the EVMs used in the constituency.

The Supreme Court has given seven days from the date of declaration of results to file such an application. Mr. Stalin said that such a request was made by the ECI within three days of the declaration of the results of the May 4, 2026 general elections in the state.

However, ECI did not carry out the verification within 45 days. The verification started on July 29, 2026 and ended on August 5, 2026 and in the course of it, Senior Counsel NR Elango, representing the petitioner, encountered several anomalies in the functioning of the EVM sets.

Therefore, Mr. Stalin has filed this suit claiming that he cannot be left without remedy due to the delay caused – not by him but by the ECI – in verifying 5% of the EVM sets. Senior counsel V. Raghavachari, assisted by advocate Pranjal Agarwal, appeared for Mr. Baba and opposed the plea.

Published – 03 Sep 2026 11:17 IST