Madras High Court dismisses M.K. Stalin’s plea to declare him elected from Kolathur constituency

The Madras Excessive Courtroom on Thursday (September 3, 2026) dismissed, as not maintainable, a writ petition filed by DMK president M.K. Stalin to order the 100% counting of VVPAT slips of the Kolathur Meeting constituency, and to consequently declare him elected after nullifying the victory of TVK MLA V.S. Babu.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan refused to entertain the writ petition after the Election Fee of India (ECI) argued that the victory of a candidate might be challenged solely by means of an election petition and never by a writ petition.

Senior counsel G. Rajagopalan and Dama Seshadri Naidu, representing the ECI, had contended that allowing a candidate to problem the election of an MLA by means of a writ petition would open up a pandora’s field, with the courtroom being flooded with related writ petitions by quite a few different candidates.

Stalin’s plea

Alternatively, Mr. Stalin had contended he couldn’t file an election petition inside the statutory time restrict of 45 days as a result of the ECI had delayed the checking and verification of the burnt memory/microcontroller in 5% of the EVMs, utilized in Kolathur, by a staff of engineers from the EVM producers.

The previous Chief Minister stated he had made a request for verification of 14 out of the 286 EVM units utilized in Kolathur on the idea of a 2024 Supreme Courtroom verdict, which allows the runner-up or the third-place-holder in an election to make a request for verification of 5% of the EVM units used within the constituency.

The highest courtroom had granted seven days’ time, from the date of declaration of outcomes, for making such an software. Mr. Stalin stated he had made such a request to the ECI inside three days of the declaration of outcomes of the overall elections within the State on Could 4, 2026.

Nevertheless, the ECI didn’t conduct the verification inside 45 days. The verification started on July 29, 2026 and ended on August 5, 2026 and through the course of, the petitioner’s consultant senior counsel N.R. Elango got here throughout a number of anomalies within the functioning of the EVM units.

Therefore, Mr. Stalin had filed the current writ petition contending he couldn’t be left remediless as a result of delay brought on – not by him, however by the ECI – in verifying 5% of the EVM units. Senior counsel V. Raghavachari, assisted by advocate Pranjal Agarwal, had appeared for Mr. Babu and opposed the writ petition.