The Madras High Court on Monday permitted Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to withdraw an election petition she had filed before assuming office as Governor, challenging the victory of DMK leader Kanimozhi from the Thoothukudi Parliamentary constituency during the Lok Sabha election in May.
Justice S.M. Subramaniam granted permission for the move after a gazette notification was produced, expressing Ms. Soundararajan’s desire to withdraw the election petition which she had filed in her capacity as one of the candidates (representing the BJP) who had lost to Ms. Kanimozhi in the Parliamentary election.
In the meantime, the Thoothukudi MP filed a petition urging the court to reject yet another election petition that had been filed by A. Santhana Kumar, a voter, challenging her victory. The judge ordered notices, returnable by October 30, to the voter and the Election Commission on her plea for rejecting the election case.
An affidavit filed by her, through senior counsel P. Wilson, stated that the averments made by the voter in his election petition were vague and bereft of material facts. She pointed out that one of the grounds cited for challenging her election was the alleged failure to mention her husband’s Permanent Account Number (PAN) in her affidavit disclosing assets. Asserting that her husband, a resident of Singapore, neither possesses a PAN card nor does he pay any income tax in the country since he does not have any taxable income, she claimed to have rightly written ‘not applicable’ in the column meant for mentioning his PAN number in her election affidavit.
