Madras HC dismisses writ petition to disqualify Congress candidate Manickam Tagore in LS polls

Chennai, April 22: The Madras High Court on Monday dismissed a writ petition seeking a direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to disqualify Congress candidate B. Manickam Tagore for alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct.

The petition was filed by BJP leader C Selvakumar who is the Virudhunagar IT wing President of the BJP.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice, Sanjay V Gangapurwala, and Justice J Sathya Narayana Prasad on Monday observed that the petition appeared to have been filed only for publicity purposes.

The Chief Justice while disposing off the writ petition said that the ECI as well as the police would naturally take the required action and that the petitioner could not treat the High Court as a “post office”.

Justice Sanjay Gangapurwala said, “The High Court is not a post office where a petition could be filed seeking all kinds of directions when the authorities concerned were bound to take action on the complaints before them.”

The petitioner, C Selvakumar stated that the Congress party cadres had issued guarantee cards to the voters with a list of benefits that they would receive after the polls, and had obtained their names and phone numbers.

He claimed that those guarantee cards had been issued without proper authorisation.

The Virudhunagar police had registered a First Information Report under Sections 171E (bribery) and 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by a public servant) of Indian Penal Code on April 14, 2024 based on a complaint by the petitioner.

Selvakumar had said that he had lodged an online complaint with the ECI on April 14.

He sought the court to give a direction to the commission to consider his representation and disqualify Manickam Tagore from contesting in the Virudhunagar parliamentary constituency.