The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has reserved its order on the petition filed by sidelined AIADMK leader T. T. V. Dhinakaran for extension of time for filing documents before the Election Commission in the election symbol case.
A division bench of Justices M. Venugopal and Abdul Quddhose reserved orders while hearing the petition on Wednesday.
Mr. Dhinakaran had filed the petition after the EC had rejected his plea for extension of time. He said that close to 1,000 pages of affidavits had to be filed, and hence, the deadline to decide the symbol issue should be extended to February 28, 2018, from October 31, he said. He claimed that the time was not sufficient to verify the documents as some members had retracted from the earlier stance. The documents needed to be verified to find out if it was done due to undue influence or own free will, he said.
The EC had directed the parties to file their documents by September 29. The Bench had earlier directed the EC to resolve the issue by October 31. The EC is to hear the parties in the symbol dispute case on October 6.
Advocate K. Chellapandian, the counsel appearing for Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and senior party leader E. Madhusudhanan, respondents in the case, argued that the petition was not maintainable as the bench had already disposed of the case by giving directions to the EC. He argued that the EC had given time till October 4 to the parties for filing any additional documents, rejoinders and replies, which was sufficient.
