In a major relief to AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami, the Madras High Court on Tuesday granted an interim injunction restraining expelled leader O. Panneerselvam from claiming to be the coordinator or even a primary member of the party, besides preventing him from using the party’s official letterhead, its two leaves symbol and flag.
Justice N. Sathish Kumar granted the interim injunction until November 30 after Senior Counsel Vijay Narayan, representing Mr. Palaniswami, told the judge that the claim made by the expelled leader was creating confusion among members of the public, at a time when the Parliamentary elections were on the anvil. The injunction was granted since Mr. Panneerselvam failed to file a counter-affidavit despite several adjournments.
Advocate P. Rajalakshmi, representing Mr. Panneerselvam, urged the judge to grant one more adjournment after the Deepavali holidays and said that her client had also filed an appeal before the Supreme Court against the refusal of a Division Bench of the High Court to interfere with his expulsion from the party. She said that the appeal had been numbered and was expected to be taken up for hearing anytime.
However, Justice Kumar told her that he was granting the interim relief since the issue over leadership of the party had been agitated in several rounds of litigations and so far, Mr. Panneerselvam had failed to obtain any stay of the High Court’s order by the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court did stay the Division Bench order, then the present interim injunction would automatically lose effect, he added.
