The Madras High Court on Thursday, September 21, 2023 granted time till October 6, for O. Panneerselvam to file his counter affidavit to a plea by AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami that seeks to restrain him from claiming to be the coordinator of the party, and from using the party flag, symbol and letterhead.
Justice R.N. Manjula accepted a request made by Senior Counsel P.H. Arvindh Pandian to allow advocate P. Rajalakshmi to take notice on behalf of Mr. Panneerselvam and grant some time for filing a detailed counter affidavit before taking a call on multiple applications filed by the plaintiff, along with his civil suit, requesting the court to grant the injunction.
Making his preliminary submissions, Senior Counsel Vijay Narayan, representing Mr. Palaniswami, told the court that Mr. Panneerselvam was expelled from primary membership of the party by its general council on July 11, 2022, and that the latter had failed to obtain any kind of interim order against his expulsion despite best efforts taken by him.
Though his civil suit against the expulsion was still pending before a single judge of the High Court, all other applications taken out by him seeking an interim stay of the general council resolution regarding expulsion were dismissed by a single judge as well as a by a Division Bench of the High Court, Mr. Narayan said.
“The problem that we are facing today is that the defendant is holding out to the non-existing post of coordinator and continuing to use the party symbol, party flag and letter head in spite of the fact that all interim orders of the court having gone in favour of the plaintiff. He has been acting parallelly,” Mr. Narayan complained to the court.
