The Supreme Court on Friday (November 6) admitted for hearing the plea of DMK candidate K.R. Periakaruppan challenging the victory of TVK's R. Seenivasa Sethupathi by a single vote in the Tirupattur constituency in the recent Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, LiveLaw reported.

Source: LiveLaw

A Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Aparesh Singh allowed Sethupathi to file his reply and directed that all relevant records relating to the election be preserved. The Court admitted Periakaruppan's appeal against the Madras High Court order rejecting his election petition against Sethupathi's election. Senior Advocate Amit Anand Tiwari appeared for Periakaruppan, while Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for Sethupathi, LiveLaw reported.

According to the official results, Sethupathi secured 83,365 votes against Periakaruppan's 83,364 — a margin of exactly one vote, as reported earlier by Bar and Bench and LawStreet in their coverage of the dispute.

The allegation: a postal ballot sent to the wrong Tirupattur

Periakaruppan has alleged — and this remains an allegation to be tested in court — that postal votes meant for the Tirupattur Assembly constituency in Sivaganga district (No. 185) were wrongly sent to the other Tirupattur constituency (No. 50) because of the similar constituency name, and were rejected there instead of being sent to the correct constituency and counted. He has argued that if those postal votes had been counted, the one-vote margin would not have occurred. In his earlier writ proceedings he had also pointed to a claimed discrepancy of 18 EVM votes between the consolidated counting abstract and the figures published on the Election Commission's website, LawStreet reported.

Sethupathi, for his part, has argued that there is no material fact showing how the rules were violated in a manner that could materially affect the election or its outcome, and that there is no basis for the allegation that exactly one postal ballot was received in the similarly named constituency. He has also argued that Periakaruppan's objections about irregularities in counting were raised only after the results were declared, and not at the time of counting, LiveLaw reported.

How the dispute reached the Supreme Court

In May this year, Periakaruppan had first filed a writ petition before the Madras High Court seeking a recount of postal votes and asking that Sethupathi be kept out of legislative proceedings pending its disposal. On May 12, a High Court Bench restrained Sethupathi from taking part in any floor test; the Supreme Court stayed that order the next day. On July 21, the Supreme Court allowed Periakaruppan to withdraw the writ petition, and he then pursued an election petition. On September 28, Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan of the Madras High Court rejected that election petition, allowing Sethupathi's application seeking its rejection — the order now under challenge in the appeal admitted on Friday (Case: K.R. Periakaruppan v. R. Seenivasa Sethupathi, C.A. No. 13957-13958/2026).

With the appeal admitted and the election records ordered preserved, the case will now proceed to a full hearing after Sethupathi files his reply. A one-vote margin is among the narrowest possible in an Assembly election, which is why the preservation of ballots and counting records — directed by the Court on Friday — is central to how the dispute can be decided.