NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, APR 1
The Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed DMK MP A Raja’s plea for urgent hearing of a writ petition challenging the order of the Election Commission, which barred him from canvassing for 48 hours, besides removed him from the list of star campaigners.
A mention to this effect was made by Raja’s senior counsel V Shanmugasundaram before the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy.
He pleaded the request might be heard immediately in view of the urgency of the matter and availability of a short period of just three days for canvassing.
The election is due on April 6 while the campaigning ends on April 4. The bench, however, rejected the plea. A categorical ”no” was the reply of the CJ.
The EC on Thursday banned Raja from campaigning for 48 hours after finding him guilty of violating the model code of conduct by making derogatory remarks against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami.
In its order, the poll panel reprimanded Raja for violation of the model code of conduct, delisted his name from the list of star campaigners of the DMK and debarred him from campaigning for 48 hours “with immediate effect.”
The Commission also advised Raja to be watchful and not to make intemperate, indecent, derogatory, obscene remarks and lower the dignity of women in future during election campaign.
