Chennai: The Madras High Court today dismissed a petition moved against the recent elections held for the coordinator and joint coordinator positions of the principal opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
The first bench of acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice P D Audikesavalu dismissed as not maintainable the public interest litigation challenging inter-party election conducted to elect the top leaders of the AIADMK.
The court held that the Election Commission of India (ECI) had no role in the inter-party election and hence no orders could be passed to the commission.
The petition prayed for a direction to the Election Commission of India not to affix its seal of approval for the election of Panneerselvam and Palaniswami, both former Chief Ministers of the state, as the co-ordinator and joint coordinator in the polls supposed to be held at the party headquarters at Royapettah here on 7 December. They were declared elected on 6 December as unopposed.
The issue pertains to a plea moved by J Jayachandran, a member of the party, alleging that the election was conducted in an arbitrary manner and no one else except Palaniswami and Panneerselvam were permitted to file nominations to contest in the election.
The Judges while dismissing the petition questioned the necessity to implead the Election Commission of India into this matter.
‘What could the ECI do in this AIADMK intra-party elections,’ the Judges questioned.
In his petition, Jayachandran, who was allegedly manhandled when he went to the party headquarters at Royapettah here to obtain nomination papers to contest in the elections on 4 December, cited the ECI as the first respondent.
The election officers — C Ponnaiyan and Pollachi V Jayaraman — nominated by the party high command, were acting whimsically. The voters list, consisting of nearly 1.50 crore cadres, was not made public. The entire proceedings were conducted in such a way to ensure that only the two top leaders filed their nominations for the respective posts, he alleged.