Madras High Court rejects election petition by ML Ravi against Lok Sabha win of DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran

The Madras High Court on Friday rejected the election petition filed by Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi president ML Ravi challenging the election victory of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)'s Dayanidhi Maran from the Chennai Central constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls..Justice N Anand Venkatesh passed two orders in the matter. In one order, the judge allowed an application filed by Maran to strike off various allegations made by ML Ravi in his election petition against the DMK leader. Maran had argued that these allegations were made without any supporting evidence. In the second order, the Court found that Ravi's election petition would not survive without the struck-off pleadings. It, therefore, dismissed Ravi's election petition."In the light of the order passed in O.A.No.103 of 2025 today i.e dated 07.3.2025, no cause of action survives in this election petition. Accordingly, the above election petition stands rejected," the Court said..Maran had won the election comfortably securing more than 56 percent of the votes polled.Ravi moved the Court contending that Maran breached the Model Code of Conduct and the Representation of People Act since his campaign advertisements were published beyond the campaign deadline.As per Ravi's plea, the campaign for polls ended on April 17, 2024 but Maran published ads in newspapers on April 19, the polling day, urging people to vote for him..The Court, however, found that the newspaper ad was a general party propaganda advertisement published by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which did not contain any specific reference to Maran. "There is no reference to the applicant in any of those advertisements and it is only a general party propaganda in the newspapers ... consequently, it cannot be held that the applicant (Marain) has induced the voters and committed corrupt practices under Section 123 of the Act," it said. The Court noted that other allegations levelled by Ravi against Maran were with respect to excessive spending for pasting certain stickers to houses and for giving refreshments and making other arrangements for booth agents/ party workers during the election campaign. Those were more in the nature of assumptions, the Court said."The first respondent (ML Ravi) assumed certain expenditure to be attributable to the applicant (Dayanidhi Maran) without any material facts and based on mere presumptions and it does not make out a cause of action to prima facie establish that there is a corrupt practice," the Court concluded. .It, therefore, allowed Maran's plea and struck off the paragraphs containing these allegations from Ravi's election petition."This Court ultimately holds that the pleadings in paragraphs 6 to 23 and 27 require to be struck off the main election petition," it said. .Senior Advocate T Mohan and advocate M Sneha represented Dayanidhi Maran. Advocate T Sivagnanasambandan represented ML Ravi. .[Read Orders]