New Delhi: The Supreme Court has allowed the plea of DMK MP Kanimozhi seeking to quash a petition challenging her election from Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi constituency in 2019. The Supreme Court Thursday dismissed the election petition challenging her 2019 election.
Kanimozhi has approached the top court challenging a Madras High Court order which threw out her petition seeking to dismiss the election petition against her. "The election petition is dismissed. Appeal is allowed," a bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi said.
Kanimozhi who contested from the Thoothukudi Lok Sabha constituency in 2019 won the election by a margin of nearly 3.5 lakh votes. A voter - Sanathana Kumar sought the court to nullify her election on the grounds that she failed to mention the Permanent Account Number (PAN) of her husband who is a Singapore citizen in her election affidavit disclosing family assets.
The apex court was examining whether it was mandatory for candidates to disclose the PAN details of their spouses who are foreign citizens when Kanimozhi. After submissions from both the parties, the Bench reserved its judgement on April 26.
According to Kanimozhi, she did mention that her spouse, a Singapore citizen, does not have a PAN number. In case, if the respondent contends this as false, then he ought to substantiate this allegation that the statement is incorrect. The ground on which the election petition was filed was making bald and vague statement that she has not provided her spouse's PAN which in not maintainable in an election petition.
“Should I be languished in court? What case will I face? Are you going to take me by surprise? I have 55 percent votes; those voters are satisfied with the information I’ve provided (regarding her husband’s PAN details). Since her husband is a Singapore citizen, she marked 'not applicable’ against the column in the election nomination form which asked for her spouse’s PAN card information. This was the complainant voter’s grievance," senior advocate P Wilson appearing for Kanimozhi had submitted.
The Bench told the respondent that, "the form the candidate was called upon to fill….. (her husband) is not holder of a PAN card. He's not filing returns, so there’s no question of income tax." The Respondent, citing multiple apex court rulings, insisted that proper and correct information help voters make ‘informed’ decisions.
