Chennai: The Madras High Court today refused to pass an ex-parte interim order challenging the resolutions adopted at the July 11, 2020 AIADMK General Council (GC) meeting, which had unanimously elected former Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami
(EPS) as the Interim General Secretary and also expelled disgruntled leader O.Panneerselvam (OPS) from the party.
The GC also abolished the posts of Coordinator and Co-coordinator held by OPS and EPS respectively, saying they ceased to exist as the resolution adopted at the December 2021 EC meet to elect them through a single vote was not ratified in the earlier GC meeting
convened on June 23, 2022.
Following this another meet was convened on July 11 as per High Court orders in which EPS was elected as Interim General Secretary, reverting back to the unitary leadership days of Party founder MGR and J.Jayalalithaa.
The leadership row in the AIADMK started after the EPS camp favoured a single leadership while EPS wanted to maintain status quo, that the party should continue with the dual leadership.
The Supreme Court a few days back upheld the Madras High Court order validating the decisions taken at the GC meet, which had also stripped OPS of all the party posts and expelled all his supporters, including two MLAs, P.H Manoj Pandian and R.Vaithlingam from the party.
When the civil suit filed by ousted AIADMK Coordinator OPS came up for hearing today, Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy said he was not inclined to pass any interim injunction restraining the EPS camp from giving effect to the resolutions adopted at the GC meet
without hearing the party and Mr EPS.
The civil suit was filed by Manoj Pandian after the Supreme Court while validating the GC meet had said the OPS camp can file a civil suit in the High Court.
The Judge ordered issuance of notices to the AIADMK and EPS to and posted the case to March 17 for further hearing.
The Judge also made it clear in his order that for the present, he was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the civil suit challenging the GC resolutions and leaving it to be decided after the filing of counter affidavits by the defendants.
