Justice N. Sathish Kumar of the Madras High Court on Thursday questioned the necessity for the AIADMK’s expelled leader O. Panneerselvam to have visited the party headquarters at Royapettah in Chennai on Monday, when the general council meeting was to take place at Vanagaram near Chennai.
The judge posed the query, while hearing individual petitions filed by the AIADMK interim general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami, and Mr. Panneerselvam against the lock and seal proceedings initiated by South Chennai Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO), following the violence that had erupted at the party office situated in a residential locality.
Questioning the necessity for Mr. Panneerselvam to have gone to the party office when Justice Krishnan Ramasamy of the High Court was to pronounce orders at 9 a.m. on the application to stall the general council meet, scheduled at 9:15 a.m., the judge asked: “Why did you go there? It is not that you did not know anything about the happenings.”
When senior counsel A. Ramesh, representing Mr. Panneerselvam, said there was no prohibition on him visiting the party office in his capacity as the coordinator and treasurer who had a seat in the office, the judge retorted: “There may not be any prohibition but as a responsible person, should you not have avoided a visit to the party office at that point of time?”
Later, continuing his arguments, Mr. Ramesh said, the order passed by the RDO must be set aside on the ground of non-application of mind. However, with respect to the differences between Mr. Palaniswami and Mr. Panneerselvam, they could be resolved either by asking them to go for settlement or pursue their remedy before courts, he said.
In his submissions, senior counsel Vijay Narayan, representing Mr. Palaniswami, said the party had given a representation to the police on July 8, seeking protection for its office on July 11. However, no such protection was given, he alleged, stating that Mr. Panneerselvam and his men would not have ransacked the office if police had prevented it. He accused the police of intentionally letting the violence happen so that they could use it as an excuse to lock and seal the office of the principal Opposition party in the State. Urging the court to watch the videos of the violence, he said Mr. Panneerselvam was accompanied by men carrying weapons, stones and sticks.
Objecting to Mr. Panneerselvam’s plea to handover the party office to him, Mr. Narayan said, Mr. Palaniswami was the headquarters secretary besides his new position as the party’s interim general secretary and, therefore, the latter was rightfully entitled to administer the office. “He [Mr. Panneerselvam] wants possession [of the office] as if it is his personal property,” Mr. Narayan said.
Denying the charge of police inaction, Additional Public Prosecutor Raj Thilak told the court that around 300 policemen were deployed from Music Academy to the party office on Monday despite which, the supporters of both the leaders indulged in violence leading to arrests and remand.
“It was a dispute between the A party and B party in which the police intervened and avoided casualty. It was not a dispute between those parties and the police. There are six schools around the party office. Therefore, to avoid trouble, the police had to intervene and obtain Revenue Divisional Officer’s order to lock and seal the building,” he said.The violence ended only in injuries because of police intervention. Otherwise, there could have been casualties, said Mr. Thilak told the court. After hearing him out, the judge directed the APP to file a detailed report regarding the incidents that took place on that day, and to produce the video recordings on Friday for his perusal.
