CHENNAI: A two-judge division bench of Justices M Duraisamy and Sundar Mohan of the Madras High Court started hearing an appeal around 1.30 am on Thursday against a single judge’s order refusing to stay the AIADMK General Council (GC) meeting scheduled to be held in Chennai on Thursday.
Justice Krishnan Ramasamy’s order, late on Wednesday, could have cleared the way for former chief minister and party joint coordinator Edappadi K Palaniswami to take over the reins of the AIADMK as its single leader.
The court’s observation that it cannot stop a party from amending its bylaws had come as a shot in the arm for the Palaniswami camp as it seeks to bring in changes in AIADMK bylaws to anoint the party’s joint coordinator as its single leader, following majority support from AIADMK office-bearers.
It’s not clear whether party coordinator O Panneerselvam and a few of his supporters, including R Vaithilingam, JCD Prabhakar and Manoj Pandian, will attend the council meeting. Earlier in the day, in another setback for Panneerselvam, Avadi Police Commissioner declined to entertain his petition asking police to deny permission to the GC meeting.
Justice Ramasamy in his verdict said the court cannot prejudge what could transpire at the GC meeting and refused to interfere with the internal affairs of amending rules, regulations or bylaws of the party.
Cannot interfere with process of conducting GC meeting, says judge
Declining to pass any interim order, the judge said it is well settled that in matters concerning internal issues of an association or a party, courts won’t normally interfere, and would leave it to the members of these entities to pass resolutions or frame bylaws for their better administration.
The judge said any decision of the members of the General Council will be their collective wisdom and court cannot insist that members act in a particular manner. The court cannot interfere with the process of conducting the GC meeting, the judge said. Earlier, the packed court hall witnessed heated arguments from a battery of senior counsels including G Rajagopal, PS Raman and NGR Prasad for petitioners including Ramkumar Adityan, PH Arvindh Pandian for Panneerselvam, and Vijay Narayan and GR Rajagopal for Palaniswami.
The counsels for the petitioners contended that the post of coordinator and joint coordinator cannot be done away with at will because as per the amended bylaws, the tenure of these posts is fixed for five years. The two key office-bearers were elected only in December last year. They also pointed out that after taking a stand that late leader J Jayalalithaa would be the ‘eternal general secretary’ and affirming this before the Delhi High Court, the posts of coordinator and joint coordinator cannot be abolished at will.
PS Raman said the bylaw on election of general secretary cannot be altered. Arvindh Pandian wanted the court to ensure that no other resolution except the 23 approved by the resolution panel be passed at the GC meeting. However, Vijay Narayan sought to negate these contentions saying that permission is not needed from anyone for adopting resolutions or amending the party bylaws.
Narayan said if members of the General Council sought to bring in amendments it can be done with majority support. He also said amending the bylaws of the party is a democratic process and it should not be stalled and the contentions of the other side on the proposed amendment are ‘purely in the realm of speculation’.
Meanwhile, more functionaries, including former MP V Maitreyan, shifted their loyalties from Panneerselvam to Palaniswami. Panneerselvam’s supporters thronged Jayalalithaa’s memorial on Marina and raised slogans in his support. Panneerselvam quoted the verse of poet Subramania Bharathi and tweeted, “Dharma might be shadowed by Adharma but at the end, only Dharma will triumph.”
‘OPS too must attend meeting’
Stating that Paneerselvam has been committing mistake after mistake, former minister D Jayakumar said he too must attend the GC meet and accept the decisions taken there