The 2026 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election had sprung many surprises, and one of them is the unusually high number of election petitions filed in the Madras High Court, challenging the victory of many high-profile candidates, including that of Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay.

According to sources, about 55 elections petitions have been filed in the High Court Registry, before the cut-off date of June 18, 2026, with respect to the Assembly elections held this year in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. In the case of the latter, the number of petitions is fewer.

Nevertheless, none of these election petitions have been numbered so far, except the one filed by Independent candidate Omsakthisekar, who had challenged the election of DMK MLA V. Karthikeyan alias V. Cartigueyane from the Nellithope Assembly constituency in Puducherry by a margin of 850 votes.

The election petitions undergo strict scrutiny, before being numbered, as per the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and the Madras High Court (Election Petitions) Rules, 1967. They require the election petitioners to file the cases in person within 45 days of the declaration of results.

Pleas challenging Vijay’s win

The petitions could be filed either by candidates who had lost the election or even by an individual voter challenging the election in his/her constituency. This time, two voters from Perambur Assembly constituency have filed individual election petitions challenging the victory of Mr. Vijay.

The petitions filed by the voters S. Dinesh of Vyasarpadi and T.N. Lakshmi Narasimhan of Kodungaiyur are in addition to the election petition filed by defeated DMK candidate R.D. Shekar, who had lost by a margin of 53,715 votes after securing 66,650 votes as against 1,20,365 votes polled in favour of the Chief Minister.

Apart from Perambur, Mr. Vijay had won from the Tiruchi (East) Assembly constituency too and resigned from that seat after the declaration of results. The DMK’s defeated candidate there, S. Inigo Irudayaraj, who had lost by a margin of 27, 416 votes, has also filed an election petition.

Mr. Irudayaraj has challenged the election of the Chief Minister on multiple grounds, such as alleged electoral corrupt practices, suppression of materials in the affidavits filed along with the nomination papers, and alleged “misuse” of children to pressurise the adults to cast votes in his favour.

Other petitions

Further, petitions have also been filed challenging the victory of Leader of the Opposition Udhayanidhi Stalin from Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni constituency and that of Ministers Aadhav Arjuna, K.A. Sengottaiyan, and N. Marie Wilson from Villivakkam, Gobichettipalayam, and Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar constituencies respectively.

While defeated candidate P. Milany has challenged the election of Mr. Udhayanidhi, two petitions, one by DMK defeated candidate Karthik Mohan, and another by voter R. Sivaraj have been filed challenging the victory of Mr. Arjuna. AIADMK’s defeated candidate V.B. Prabhu has challenged Mr. Sengottaiyan’s victory.

Former DMK Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi has also filed a petition challenging the victory of TVK MLA Vijayakumar alias Navalpattu S. Viji from the Thiruverumbur constituency and TVK candidate K.M. Shariff has challenged the victory of DMK MLA V. Muthuraja by a margin of 1,867 votes from the Pudukottai constituency.

One more election petition has challenged the victory of AIADMK MLA Leemarose Martin from Lalgudi Assembly constituency. DMK candidate T. Parivallal had filed this case.

Process of trial

After all these petitions get numbered, they would be placed before Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari to be assigned to individual judges.

After the election petitions get assigned to the judges concerned, the latter would order notices to the respondents before commencing the trial, when the witnesses (including the elected representatives concerned, the election officials, and others) would be required to enter the witness box and depose on oath.

The witnesses would be subjected to examination in chief and also cross examination. However, before the commencement of the trial, the MLAs could exercise the option of filing applications to reject the election petitions, and any order passed in those applications could be taken on appeal to the Supreme Court.

Court officials said, the number of election petitions filed in the High Court this year were certainly the highest because only 12 election petitions were taken on file after the 2011 Assembly elections, 23 such petitions got numbered after the 2016 Assembly polls, and just 13 were taken up for hearing in 2021.