Following a case alleging material discrepancies in the assets declared by Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, two more writ petitions of a similar nature have been filed in the Madras High Court seeking an inquiry regarding the assets declared by Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) leader C. Joseph Vijay and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) former State president Tamilisai Soundararajan.

While V. Vignesh, a voter from Perambur Assembly constituency, had filed the writ petition against Mr. Vijay; the case against Ms. Soundararajan had been filed by Goutham Siva, a voter from the Mylapore constituency. However, both writ petitions were yet to be numbered by the High Court Registry, though they have insisted on the declaration of the true assets of the two candidates before the polling on April 23.

In his affidavit, Mr. Vignesh said the TVK leader was contesting from Perambur as well as Tiruchi East constituencies. The details of his assets declared in the affidavits, filed along with his nomination, were not only incomplete but also prima facie false, inconsistent with the statutory records, and indicative of deliberate and systematic suppression of material financial information, the petitioner said.

A comparative and sequential scrutiny of the affidavits filed by Mr. Vijay, before the Returning Officers of the two constituencies, when read in conjunction with the statutory filings, disclose multiple layers of inconsistencies, which raise grave concerns, and, taken together, they clearly make out a prima facie case warranting investigation by the Director-General of Income Tax (Investigation) (DGIT), the litigant added.

The petitioner sought a direction to the DGIT and the Election Commission of India (ECI) to conduct an inquiry regarding the inconsistencies and sought a direction to the Returning Officers to make the inquiry report public before April 23.

Case against Tamilisai Soundararajan

In his affidavit against Ms. Soundararajan, the writ petitioner, Mr. Siva, said a comparative reading of the affidavits filed by her during the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the 2026 Assembly election disclose a consistent pattern of irregularities, distortion of declared assets, contradictions, unexplained changes in financial exposure, and mismatch between certain transactions.

“Viewed from the perspective of a voter, these discrepancies render the disclosures untrustworthy and undermine the very objective of the transparency regime prescribed by law, thereby warranting an independent investigation by special agencies to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process,” he said, and insisted upon an inquiry by the DGIT and the ECI.