CHENNAI: In yet another legal victory to AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, the Madras High Court on Monday barred former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam permanently from using the AIADMK’s flag, symbol and letterhead.
Justice N Sathish Kumar passed the orders in a suit filed by Palaniswami, seeking to permanently prevent the deposed leader from using the flag, symbol and letterhead. He also asked the court to stop Panneerselvam from claiming to be the party’s coordinator, the post which was abolished to pave way for bringing back the post of general secretary.
The court verdict is considered to be a blow to Panneerselvam since he was recently expressing confidence that he will get the two Leaves symbol for his faction for the Lok Sabha elections.
During arguments, the counsels for Palaniswami had contended that Panneerselvam could not use the party flag, symbol and letterhead since he was expelled from the party through a unanimous resolution passed in the meeting of the party’s general council.
They also argued that Panneerselvam was causing confusion among the party cadre by running a party in parallel and sacking office-bearers and appointing new ones on his own, even after being expelled from the party.
However, Panneerselvam’s counsels argued that the suits challenging his expulsion was not yet decided and so, the expulsion had not reached finality; and as a consequence, he could not be restrained from using the party flag, symbol and the letterhead.
The judge had earlier granted interim injunction restraining OPS. He had made an appeal against the interim order but the appeals were dismissed by a division bench.