Chennai, May 13 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to urgently hear on May 13 a plea filed by Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) MLA-elect Sreenivasa Sethupathi challenging a Madras high court order that restrained him from participating in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, including the crucial floor test and confidence motion scheduled for Wednesday, over a dispute involving a postal ballot in the Tiruppattur constituency. A bench of justices L Victoria Gowri and N Senthil Kumar of the Madras high court had earlier in the day passed the interim order on a petition filed by DMK leader KR Periyakaruppan, who lost the Tiruppattur assembly seat by a single vote and alleged that poll officials mishandled a postal ballot meant for the constituency in Sivagangai district. Within hours of the HC order, Sethupathi moved the apex court. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi mentioned the plea for urgent hearing before Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, and the Supreme Court agreed to list the matter on May 13. The high court also directed preservation of all counting records, postal ballots, rejected ballot covers, EVM records and videographic footage connected to the election. During the previous hearing on May 11, the Election Commission of India (ECI) had argued before the Madras HC that it had no jurisdiction to act on Periyakaruppan's complaint after the declaration of results. It also contended that the DMK candidate should have filed an election petition instead of a writ petition. The HC, however, said the allegations pointed to an "administrative failure by election authorities" in not returning a wrongly sent postal ballot to the correct constituency before counting concluded....