The Madras High Court on Monday adjourned to June 10 a batch of three original side appeals filed by expelled AIADMK leader O. Panneerselvam against a single judge’s order restraining him from using the ‘two leaves’ symbol, besides imposing other restraints.
A Division Bench of Justices R. Subramanian and R. Sakthivel said that it was neither passing any interim order nor rejecting the plea for interim orders, but was only adjourning the appeals, simpliciter, until after the general election, to avoid confusion during the ongoing election process.
Senior counsel P.H. Arvindh Pandian, representing the appellant, said that his only concern was that the interim injunction order passed by the single judge on March 18, 2024 should not disentitle his client from approaching the Election Commission (EC) seeking the ‘two leaves’ symbol.
When the senior judge in the Bench said that it was up to the appellant to approach the EC without inviting any observations from the Bench, Mr. Pandian replied that he would approach the court again if his client faced any problem before the EC due to the civil proceedings pending before the court.
Justice N. Sathish Kumar had granted three interim injunctions on March 18 restraining Mr. Panneerselvam from using the AIADMK’s ‘two leaves’ symbol, flag and letterhead; injuncting him from claiming to be the coordinator or even a primary member of the party; and preventing him from interfering with the activities of the party’s general secretary, Edappadi K. Palaniswami.
The relief was granted till the disposal of a civil suit filed by Mr. Palaniswami seeking permanent injunctions of a similar nature. Mr. Panneerselvam had filed the present original side appeals challenging all three interim injunctions primarily on the ground that they amounted to granting the final relief.
He also contended that the interim injunctions ought not to have been granted when a different civil suit filed by him challenging his expulsion from the party was still pending in the court.
Another case
Later in the day, the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy took up a writ petition filed by S. Surya Moorthi seeking a direction to the EC to take necessary action on his representation for not allotting the ‘two leaves’ symbol to the AIADMK till the disposal of civil suits filed against intra-party elections.
Since the petitioner’s counsel told the court that he had been engaged to argue the case only on Sunday, and required time to go through the papers, the judges adjourned the hearing to April 22.
