3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: May 13, 2026 04:20 AM IST
The Supreme Court will hear Wednesday an appeal filed by Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) MLA R Seenivasa Sethupathi challenging the Madras High Court order restraining him from voting or taking part in the floor test of the Tamil Nadu Assembly.
The appeal has been listed before a three-judge bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and Vijay Bishnoi.
Appearing for Sethupathi, Senior Advocate A M Singhvi submitted before Chief Justice of India Surya Kant that the MLA had filed an appeal challenging the high court order passed earlier in the day.
As Singhvi urged the bench to take it up urgently, the CJI said he would list it for Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, a Madras High Court bench of Justices L Victoria Gowri and N Senthilkumar restrained Sethupathi, who had won from Tiruppattur district by one vote, from voting.
The order came on a plea by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader K R Periakaruppan, who had lost the election to Sethupathi by one vote. Periakaruppan had alleged irregularities and discrepancies in vote counting.
“There shall be an order of interim injunction restraining the sixth respondent/returned candidate from voting or otherwise taking part in any floor test, including confidence motion, no-confidence motion, trust vote or any voting proceeding in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly where the numerical strength of the House is tested, until further orders of this Court,” the high court said.
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The high court remarked that if Sethupathi participates in such proceedings and his vote becomes decisive, the consequence may travel far beyond the constituency and affect the constitutional governance of the state. It, however, clarified that the order would not deem his election as void.
“We are not, at this stage, declaring the election of the sixth respondent void. Nor is this Court seating the petitioner in his place. We are only considering whether, pending prima facie scrutiny of serious electoral anomalies in a one-vote result, the returned candidate should be permitted to participate in a proceeding where his vote may alter the balance of power in the House,” the bench said.
According to the petitioner, postal votes belonging to No. 185 were wrongly sent to No. 50 in the Tirupattur Assembly constituency.
Taking note, the Madras High Court said, “In an election decided by thousands of votes, such matters may stand on a different plane. But in an election decided by one vote, every vote is not merely relevant; it is potentially determinative. The petitioner’s grievance regarding the postal ballot is not a mere request for a recount.”
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“It is a complaint that a vote allegedly belonging to one constituency was dealt with by an authority of another constituency. If this allegation is ultimately found to be correct, the matter would not merely involve an error of counting but a jurisdictional defect in the handling of a valid electoral record.”
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