Madras HC refuses interim order on AIADMK's Apr 16 emergency executive committee meet

The party is likely to take key decisions on contesting the next month's assembly polls in Karnataka amid enrolling new members.

A division bench of justices R.Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq said, there would not be any necessity for the court 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 leaders O. Panneerselvam, P.H.Manoj Pandian, R.Vaithilingam (all MLAs) and JCD Prabhakar against their expulsions from the party.

The judges also said the appeals, challenging the refusal to injunct the party from implementing its July 11 general council resolutions abolishing the posts of Coordinator and Joint coordinator, and reviving the post of General Secretary (thereby reverting back to the single leadership days of the party founder and late Chief Ministers MGR and J.Jayalalithaa), would be taken up for final hearing on April 20 and 21.

If the arguments could not be completed within those two days, then they could be continued on April 24 too, the judges said.

Senior Counsel P.S. Raman and C. Manishankar, representing the appellants, feared that the party should not end up issuing new membership cards to the supporters of General Secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami alone, and then end up claiming before the court that the appellants’ supporters, holding the old membership cards, would not be considered members.

Responding to it, AIADMK Counsel said 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 by getting the appeals listed beforehand.