Election Commission has informed Madras High Court that AIADMK had no locus standi to question its decision to conceal the two-leaves symbol painted on small buses in the city when it maintains that the said picture was in no way connected to the party or its symbol.
EC had last week told court that it had decided to conceal the pictures, which resemble AIADMK's two leaves symbol.
The EC response was conveyed when a petition by DMK leader MK Stalin came up for hearing today. The petition seeks covering of the pictures on the buses and the removal of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's image from bottles of drinking water sold by the government.
Jayalalithaa has filed a separate petition against the EC decision on the grounds that it had been taken without any notice having been sent to AIADMK.
When the matter came up before the first bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Satish K Agnihotri and Justice TS Sivagnanam, EC's senior counsel G Rajagopalan said AIADMK had no locus standi to question the Commission's decision.
The bench then adjourned the matter to March 20 saying it would hear it along with two other petitions, one filed by AIADMK and the other by social activist KR Ramasamy.
Jayalalithaa's senior counsel, R Muthukumaraswamy, submitted that EC had taken the impugned decision to cover paintings on small buses without issuing a notice to AIADMK.
He denied that the picture on the buses resembled the party's two leaves symbol and contended that the images had four leaves.
To this, Rajagopalan said that EC's decision could not be questioned by AIADMK.
AL Somayaji, Advocate General of Tamil Nadu, said the state government ought to have been made a formal party to the proceedings.
R Viduthalai, senior counsel for Stalin, said that DMK had been complaining about the said symbol which the party claimed was being painted on government schemes such as small buses and other government-owned/run companies.
Ramasamy was the first one to file a PIL questioning the government's decision to erect kiosks on city pavements to sell bottled drinking water for Rs 10.
Objecting to the use of the CM's photograph on the bottles and the kiosks, the social activist said it was an abuse of public money and also obstructed free movement on the roads.