AIADMK case, hearing adjourned to April 20 and 21

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Wednesday refrained from passing any kind of interim order with respect to the conduct of the AIADMK emergency executive council meeting which is scheduled to take place on April 16.

The High Court had decided to take up four appeals filed by expelled leader O Panneerselvam, PH Manoj Pandian, R Vaithilingam and JCD Prabhakar challenging the refusal to injunct the party from implementing its July 11 general council resolutions that abolished the posts of coordinator and joint coordinator.

The court after hearing all the sides adourned the matter to be heard on April 20 and 21.

A division bench comprising Justices R Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq said there would not be any necessity to pass interim orders since it goes without saying that any decision taken by the party would be subject to the outcome of the appeals filed by expelled leader O Panneerselvam, PH Manoj Pandian, R Vaithilingam and JCD Prabhakar against a single judge's order.

Earlier, when these bunch of petitions came up for hearing, the bench asked what is the reason, need to take this case for an urgent hearing today.

Responding to this, senior counsel C Manishankar representing the appellants said that the emergency executive committee is being convened to contest in the Karnataka assembly elections and to select the candidates and to issue new membership cards.

"However, the party should not end up issuing new membership cards to the supporters of Edappadi K Palaniswamy alone and the appellants' supporters holding the old membership cards would not be considered as members,” he added.

Replying to this, senior counsel CS Vaidyanathan contended that the Supreme Court and the High Court had issued orders in favour of Edappadi K Palaniswami and the Madras High Court had already ordered that whatever decision the party takes, that is bound by the final order of the court and the membership drive would go on for about six months and therefore there was no need for the appellants to have unnecessarily disturbed the court and the Supreme Court's order regarding the Erode East by-election cannot be related to the Karnataka assembly elections.

On his part, senior counsel Vijay Narayan, representing the AIADMK contended that the appellant O Panneerselvam has no influence among the general council members and while he has just 4 members, the Edappadi K Palaniswami has a support of more than 2,500 members.

Interfering this, the judges questioned what decision are you going to take in the emergency executive committee meeting.

Replying to this, senior counsel Vijay Narayan said that the emergency executive committee meeting had been called for on April 16 primarily to discuss issues regarding alliances and selection of candidates for the Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections.

Countering this, senior counsel PS Raman representing the appellants contended that the appellants may have the support of 4 members of the general council but if he joins the party, the four will become 400.

"When the interim appeal was pending before the single judge, the respondents asked for ten days' time to file the reply and they announced the general secretary election. Similarly, every action is taken by the respondents, " he added.

Responding to this, Vijay Narayan stated that daily action in politics is important and the party would have to necessarily conduct one other meeting for the purpose of its day-to-day functioning and every such meeting could not give rise to a cause of action for the appellants to seek interim orders.

Then the bench questioned what is the present status of O Panneerselvam in the party.

C Manishankar replied that he was expelled from the party.

Immediately the bench said that the appellant O Panneerselvam is fighting against his own party.

Responding to this, senior counsel PS Raman contended that O Panneerselvam has been in the party since his childhood but latterly he was sacked from the party by few people.