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The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's attempt to get the Andipatti assembly by-election deferred failed on Wednesday with the Delhi high court rejecting a petition in this regard.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalithaa, who is seeking to enter the Tamil Nadu assembly, is contesting from Andipatti.
Justice Manmohan Sarin dismissed a writ petition by DMK candidate Vaigai Sekar alleging that about 17,000 bogus names had been inserted in the Andipatti voter list by the AIADMK to ensure victory for Jayalalithaa.
The polling for the by-election is scheduled for Thursday.
During arguments on the petition, the Election Commission pleaded that it could not correct the electoral rolls once the notification had been issued.
While senior advocate K K Venugopal, the counsel for Jayalalithaa and the EC, argued that courts were prohibited from intervening in the poll process between notification and declaration of results, Sekar's counsel P N Lekhi contended that the "the bar does not extend to the revision of the electoral rolls".
The court said that the EC had looked into the complaint filed by Sekar regarding alleged registration of bogus voters and had verified it.
The EC had explained every aspect regarding redressal of the complaint in its reply, Justice Sarin said.
Since the election process had already been started with the issuance of poll notification, the court had no jurisdiction to issue a directive, as it was barred under Article 329 (b) of the Constitution, the judge ruled.
Referring to the petition filed by the DMK candidate, Justice Sarin said the jurisdiction for hearing a petition to this effect lay with the Madras high court, and noted that it had already dismissed an identical petition.
