CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday 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 AIADMK general secretary and upheld the orders of the civil court in rejecting her plaint and an application for amending the plaint. Incidentally, the order, originally listed for Monday, has come on the death anniversary of Jayalalithaa.
A division bench of justices R Subramanian and N Senthilkumar pronounced the verdict 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 in 2017. However, the existence of AIADMK Amma led by her, before being overthrown by then Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and 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 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,” the bench said in the order.
Referring to the appeals, the court concluded that the amendment application cannot be allowed and 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, “… we will have to necessarily conclude that the suit as it stands today cannot be retained on the file as it 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. We are, therefore, unable to fault the trial court for having rejected the plaint.”