Election petition: Tamil Nadu CM Vijay produces Kodaikanal land sale deed before Madras High Court

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay has produced before the Madras High Court a sale deed to prove that he had, in fact, purchased 50 cents of land at Vilpatti village in Kodaikanal in 1997, as declared in his election affidavit while contesting from the Perambur constituency this year.

The sale deed was produced before Justice V. Lakshminarayanan, who is seized of an election petition filed by a voter, S. Dinesh, urging the court to declare Mr. Vijay’s victory from the Perambur constituency null and void on the ground of false declarations and misdeclarations in his election affidavit.

In the petition, filed through his counsel on record, V.R. Shanmuganathan, the voter had claimed that the Vilpatti property had actually been classified as ‘Government Poramboke’ land as per the Village ‘A’ register, a land record which the petitioner had downloaded from the State government’s website.

When the judge wanted to know whether he, as the presiding officer of an election tribunal, could decide the title of a property when confronted with conflicting documents, the petitioner’s arguing counsel replied: “Definitely MiLord. Your Lordship can render a finding on the issue.”

“After taking evidence during the course of trial, Your Lordship can decide anything. Your Lordship may even render a finding that yes, the sale deed is correct and the ‘A’ register is not correct because it is an old record. Your Lordship may conclude whatever you feel is right,” he said.

However, the counsel said that a decision as to whether the sale deed was right or the ‘A’ register was not right could not be taken at the present stage when the Chief Minister had filed an application to reject the election petition at the threshold, without even taking it to the stage of trial.

He said that the election petitioner had made out a cause of action for conducting a full-fledged trial by listing a number of false and misdeclarations in the election affidavit, which had the effect of influencing the voters’ choice, and hence, the application filed by the Chief Minister must be dismissed.

On the judge’s question as to whether being in possession of government land would disentitle a person from being a Member of the Legislative Assembly, the counsel said, “I would prefer not to go into that issue. I am confining my argument to the point that the applicant’s claim over the Vilpatti property is false.”

What did Vijay’s counsel say?

Thereafter, arguing the case on behalf of the Chief Minister, senior counsel Gopal Sankaranarayanan said that Mr. Vijay had declared assets worth over ₹600 crore in his election affidavit. “So, if he is wealthy up to ₹630 crores, the question is whether a difference by a few crores would amount to criminalisation of politics,” he said.

He went on to state: “Let’s presume that there is some strange voter for whom this ₹2 or ₹3 crore may make a difference. Maybe in his mind, he had said that if Mr. Vijay has more than ₹650 crore, I am not going to vote for him. Let’s presume that kind of a strange individual resides within this constituency, to that human being, there is a further step that the election petitioner has to take to say that look, here are a bunch of voters who actually have ₹650 crore as a cut-off mark and if it is going to go beyond that, they are not going to vote for him… But there is no such pleading in the election petition.”

After the counsel for both sides concluded their oral arguments, Justice Lakshminarayanan directed the Registry to list the case on October 14, 2026 for submission of written arguments. The judge said he shall reserve orders on Mr. Vijay’s application after the receipt of the written notes.