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N Sathiya Moorthy in Chennai
Recounting of votes in the Karur Lok Sabha elections of 1999 in Tamil Nadu were on Thursday suspended on the orders of the Supreme Court.
The apex court order followed a petition by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Lok Sabha member S Chinnaswami, challenging the Madras high court order in this regard.
The high court had taken up recounting of 700,000-odd votes after Justice A Ramamurthi found substance in the petition of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam contestant K P Palaniswamy.
The losing candidate in Karur, Palaniswamy had alleged irregularities in counting, leading to the AIADMK nominee winning the seat by 2000-plus votes.
Chinnaswami's counsel had mentioned a pending petition before the Supreme Court when a team of high court officials, headed by a registrar, began counting of the votes on Wednesday.
The ballot boxes kept in safe custody in Karur were brought specially to Chennai in container-trucks.
Justice Ramamurthi declined to stay the recounting until the Supreme Court passed any restraining orders. Following this, the counting process commenced on Wednesday afternoon, but was suspended around the same time on Thursday. The recounting itself was expected to take five to six days.
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