Former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa received a reprieve on Tuesday, with the Supreme Court directing the Election Commission to maintain status quo on the case registered against her for alleged electoral malpractices.
A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveenderan passed the direction after counsel for
the AIADMK chief referred to the SLP filed by her challenging the Madras High Court's direction on registration of a case against her for alleged electoral malpractices.
On April 24, the High Court had directed the EC to register a case against Jayalalithaa following a petition filed by DMK MP C Kuppuswamy alleging that AIADMK leader had suppressed facts and filed nominations from four Assembly constituencies as against the permissible limit of two constituencies.
The said constituencies for which she had reportedly filed the nominations during the 2001 Assembly elections were
Andipati, Krishnagiri, Bhuvnagiri and Pudkotai.
However, Jayalalithaa in her SLP has claimed that she had only personally filed the nominations from Andipatti and
Krishnagiri constituencies, whereas nominations were filed on her name from Bhuvnagir and Pudukotai.
She submitted that in the latter two constituencies she had not taken any oath and the same was taken note of by the
Returning Officers for the two constituencies.
Though the Returning Officer had concluded that there was 'no suppression of facts', the DMK, with a malicious intent, filed the petition in the High Court for a direction to the EC, Jayalalithaa submitted in her petition.
According to her, the High Court took an erroneous view of the DMK leader's complaint by not taking into consideration the findings of the Returning Officer.
Moroever, the former chief minister submitted that the issue had been raked up by the complainant six years after
the election with a deliberate intention to harass her.
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