CHENNAI: Madras high court has warned Tamil Nadu chief minister C Joseph Vijay and public works department minister Aadhav Arjuna that it will be constrained to impose Rs 50,000 as exemplary cost on each of them if they fail to file their response to the petitions challenging their victories in the recent assembly election.“The court is not bothered about the persons involved in the litigation but only wanted to ensure that the election petitions are disposed of within the statutory period of six months,” Justice V Lakshminarayanan observed on Tuesday.However, after counsel for the chief minister and the minister assured the court that the applications seeking rejection of the plaints would be filed in a day, the court adjourned the hearing to Aug 27.The issue pertains to petitions moved by DMK candidate R D Shekar and voters Dinesh and Lakshmi Narasimman challenging the election of Vijay from Perambur constituency. Similarly, the losing DMK candidate Inigo Irudayaraj had filed an election petition challenging Vijay’s victory from Trichy East constituency.According to the petitioners, in his campaign speech on April 21, Vijay appealed to children to ask their parents and other family members to vote for TVK violating election code that prohibits involvement of minors in election campaigns. Also, there were defects in the financial declaration made by Vijay in his election affidavit, it said.Similarly, DMK candidate Karthik Mohan and voter R Sivaraj filed separate election petitions challenging Aadhav Arjuna’s election from the Villivakkam assembly constituency.
