A city civil court has asked V.K. Sasikala, former interim general secretary of the AIADMK, to respond to a counter filed by the party in a civil suit instituted by her challenging her removal from the party. It may be recalled that Ms. Sasikala recently announced that she would stay away from politics.
In 2017, Ms. Sasikala filed a civil suit seeking to declare that AIADMK leaders Edappadi K. Palaniswami, O. Panneerselvam, Dindigul C. Srinivasan, S. Semmalai and E. Madhusudanan were not members of the party.
She submitted that all actions taken by them in their capacity as the party office-bearers, removing her from the post of the interim general secretary were illegal and against the by-laws of the party.
The case, which was originally filed in the Madras High Court, was transferred to a lower court on the count of jurisdiction a year ago.
In the civil suit, Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran was added as one of plaintiffs. The case was taken up for hearing by fourth city civil court judge A.R.V. Ravi. The court accepted a memo filed by counsel for Mr. Dhinakaran seeking to abandon the case since he had floated a separate party.
The court adjourned the case to April 9 for further hearing. However, Ms. Sasikala’s counsel sought time.
The counsel representing Mr. Palaniswami and Mr. Panneerselvam had argued that the petition filed by her be dismissed. They submitted it was already dismissed by the Election Commission; this was also upheld by the Supreme Court.
