Madras High Court criticises Supreme Court for ignoring its own observations on early disposal of election disputes

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Former Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker M. Appavu. FIle | Photo Credit: A. Shaikmohideen

The Madras High Court has criticised the Supreme Court for having kept former Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker M. Appavu’s 2016 election dispute case pending for more than six years and then referring it back to the High Court without answering the question of law involved in the case.

Justice G. Jayachandran recalled the Supreme Court to have underlined the need to resolve election disputes at the earliest in Mohd Akbar versus Ashok Sahu (2015) and wrote: “If courts continue to ignore their own observations made in Mohd.Akbar case (cited supra), I fear that this country may also go in the way of other autocratic countries which gained Independence around 75 years ago along with us.”

The judge said, the core question involved in Mr. Appavu’s election dispute was whether the headmasters of government middle schools could be considered gazetted officers authorised to attest postal votes, since the Returning Officer (RO) of Radhapuram Assembly Constituency in 2016 had rejected 203 of such postal votes.

He said, answering this question was crucial to the election case since the RO had declared Mr. Appavu of DMK to have lost to I.S. Inbadurai of AIADMK by a slender margin of 49 votes after rejecting 203 postal votes of which 153 had been cast in favour of Mr. Appavu and only one in favour of Mr. Inbadurai.

“The honourable Supreme Court, after keeping the matter pending for about six years (since 2019), thought fit that the question has to be kept open in view of the lapse of time and the term of office having expired and no useful purpose would be served in adjudicating upon the said question in the Civil Appeal. With great respect, the honourable apex court should have answered this question since this court has already as court of first instance/trial Court given a finding in respect of the above question,” Justice Jayachandran wrote.

The judge recalled that on October 1, 2019, he had re