CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has dismissed the petitions filed by VK Sasikala, a close of aide of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, challenging her removal from the post of interim general secretary of AIADMK and upheld the orders of the civil court in rejecting her plaint and an application for amending the plaint.
A division bench of Justices R Subramanian and N Senthilkumar pronounced the verdict on Tuesday on the appeals challenging the order of rejection of her plaint by the civil court and the civil revision petition challenging the order refusing the prayer for amending the plaint.
Sasikala had filed the petitions in her capacity as the interim general secretary of AIADMK (Amma) challenging her removal from the post.
However, the existence of AIADMK Amma led by her, before overthrown by the then Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, and the other group, AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) led by ex-CM O Panneerselvam, ceased to exist owing to an order of the Election Commission of India on the party name and symbol favouring EPS-OPS combine and it was upheld by the Supreme Court.
In this context, the civil court found that the petitions of Sasikala have become infructuous and the application to amend the plaint could not be accepted as it would change the very nature of it.
The high Court bench dismissed the civil revision petition challenging the refusal of the civil court to accept her amendment application. It said, “The trial judge has concluded that the amendment if allowed would put in place a completely different controversy before the court which is not permissible. We are in complete agreement with the views expressed by the trial judge on the effect of the amendment.
“We therefore, do not see any reason to interfere with the order rejecting the prayer for amendment. We therefore dismiss the civil revision petition, confirming the orders passed by the trial judge,” the bench said in the order.
Referring to the appeals, the court said having concluded that the amendment application cannot be allowed, what is on hand is the original plaint filed in 2017. “Therefore, the suit as it stands today is a completely meritless suit and the second plaintiff (Sasikala) cannot in this suit attempt to enforce her rights as the general secretary of AIADMK.”
Regarding the petitions becoming infructuous due to consequent actions/developments, the division bench reasoned, “If we are to examine the case on hand, in the light of the precedents that have been cited at the bar, we will have to necessarily conclude that the suit as it stands today cannot be retained on the file as the suit espouses the right of a splinter group that was created by an interim order of the Election Commission, which has ceased to be in existence upon the final orders having been passed. We are therefore, unable to fault the trial court for having rejected the plaint.”
It may be noted that Sasikala was elected to the post of interim general secretary by the general council (GC) of the party on December 29, 2016 following the demise of Jayalalithaa on December 5, 2016. She had to be incarcerated in the Bengaluru jail since the Supreme Court upheld her conviction in the disproportionate assets case on February 14, 2017.
The party split into two as former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam made a revolt against Sasikala’s ascension as the group led by Sasikala was named AIADMK (Amma) while the other one was named AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma).
After OPS joined hands with EPS, they together threw out Sasikala and Dhinakaran from their respective posts and the party at the GC meeting on September 12, 2017 and OPS and EPS became coordinator and joint coordinator of the party respectively.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission of India, which had frozen the party symbol, ordered in favour of the party’s presidium chairperson E Madhusudanan that the party represented by him is the real party and entitled to use of name and symbol.
Sasikala moved the court against her removal but her civil suits against removal from the party post were rejected by the Fourth Additional Civil Court in Chennai. Challenging them, she approached the High Court.