The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by sidelined AIADMK leader T. T. V. Dhinakaran seeking extension of time for filing documents before the Election Commission to support his claim that he is the leader of the party. He had also sought an extension of deadline for deciding on the ‘two leaves’ symbol issue.
The division bench of Justices M. Venugopal and Abdul Quddhose, which had reserved orders on Wednesday, observed that the petitioner cannot ‘approbate’ and ‘reprobate’ in the eye of law. The doctrine of approbate and reprobate basically says that a person cannot accept one part of something and reject those parts unfavourable to him.
The bench also observed that Mr. Dhinakaran, who had sought extension of time for filing documents in his writ petition before the court had also sought an extension of time for settling the symbol dispute, which is a contra plea.
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The EC had earlier rejected Mr. Dhinakaran’s plea for extension of time for filing documents. Following the EC’s rejection, he filed a petition before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court saying that more time was required to file the documents. He also stated that the documents were to be verified to check their authenticity. He claimed that fresh filing of documents would enlarge the scope of the dispute and that some members had retracted from their earlier stance and this needed to be verified whether it was due to undue influence or voluntary.
The Madurai Bench had already disposed of the petition in the ‘two leaves’ symbol case by giving directions to the EC to settle the dispute by October 31.
The EC had directed the parties concerned to file necessary documents by September 29. It had allowed the submission of other documents, rejoinders and replies till October 4. The EC will hear parties to the symbol dispute on October 6.
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