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

The Madras High Court 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 Assembly 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 Commission of India (ECI) argued that the victory of a candidate could be challenged only by way of an election petition and not through a writ petition.

Senior counsel G. Rajagopalan and Dama Seshadri Naidu, representing the ECI, had contended that permitting a candidate to challenge the election of an MLA by way of a writ petition would open up a pandora’s box, with the court being flooded with similar writ petitions by numerous other candidates.

Stalin’s plea

On the other hand, Mr. Stalin had contended he could not file an election petition within the statutory time limit of 45 days because the ECI had delayed the checking and verification of the burnt memory/microcontroller in 5% of the EVMs, used in Kolathur, by a team of engineers from the EVM manufacturers.

The former Chief Minister said he had made a request for verification of 14 out of the 286 EVM sets used in Kolathur on the basis of a 2024 Supreme Court verdict, which permits the runner-up or the third-place-holder in an election to make a request for verification of 5% of the EVM sets used in the constituency.

The top court had granted seven days’ time, from the date of declaration of results, for making such an application. Mr. Stalin said he had made such a request to the ECI within three days of the declaration of results of the general elections in the State on May 4, 2026.

However, the ECI did not conduct the verification within 45 days. The verification began on July 29, 2026 and ended on August 5, 2026 and during the process, the petitioner’s representative senior counsel N.R. Elango came across several anomalies in the functioning of the EVM sets.

Hence, Mr. Stalin had filed the present writ petition contending he could not be left remediless due to the delay caused – not by him, but by the ECI – in verifying 5% of the EVM sets. Senior counsel V. Raghavachari, assisted by advocate Pranjal Agarwal, had appeared for Mr. Babu and opposed the writ petition.