Madras High Court: a weak election petition cannot be thrown out at the threshold if it pleads material facts

The Madras High Court dismissed an application by a sitting MLA to summarily reject the election petition challenging his win from Ambasamudram, holding that an election petition cannot be rejected in limine merely because the allegations it makes seem unlikely to succeed. The returned candidate, who won by over 10,000 votes, sought dismissal under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure read with Sections 81, 83, 86 and 87 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, arguing the petition's allegations of corrupt practice were unsubstantiated.

Justice P.B. Balaji held that an election petition can be dismissed at the threshold only for non-compliance with Sections 81, 82 or 117 of the Act, which concern limitation, verification and deposit of security; non-compliance with Section 83, which requires a concise statement of material facts, is a procedural defect that does not by itself warrant dismissal, following a Constitution Bench ruling in Balwan Singh v. Lakshmi Narain. Relying on the Supreme Court's recent decision in Kanimozhi Karunanidhi v. A. Santhana Kumar, the Court found the petitioner had pleaded sufficient material facts, with names, dates and specific instances, to disclose a cause of action, so whether those allegations are actually true could only be tested through evidence at trial, not decided on the pleadings alone.