Madras High Court restrains Election Commission from probing appointment of EPS as AIADMK head

The Madras High Court on Thursday stayed all proceedings pending before the Election Commission of India (ECI) pertaining to a probe into the appointment of Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) as AIADMK general secretary..A Bench of Justices R Subramanian and C Kumarappan passed the interim order after admitting a batch of six writ petitions filed by the AIADMK for directions to restrain the ECI from conducting “quasi-judicial” proceedings on the party’s internal affairs.The High Court also granted time till January 27, the next date of hearing, to the ECI to file its counter affidavit..Senior Advocates Vijay Narayan and Aryama Sundaram, who appeared for EPS, told the High Court that while several applications had been made before the ECI by “disgruntled” party members, the poll body did not have any power to decide on the internal affairs of a political party.Narayan was referring to the ongoing dispute in the AIADMK and the several representations made by some party members such as P Ravindranath, KC Palanisamy and Va Pugazhendi, challenging Palaniswami’s authority within the party.Earlier this week, Palaniswami was also summoned by the ECI following a representation made by one Surya Moorthi, asking that the candidates proposed by Palaniswami for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections should not have been allotted the “two leaves’ symbol..ECI, told the Court that the poll body merely wanted details of the results of the intra-party elections for updating its records and that it had no intention of conducting any quasi-judicial proceedings.Advocate Niranjan Rajagopalan, ECI’s standing counsel, further told the Court that AIADMK and Palaniswami had filed the petitions on a presumption that the ECI would venture into issues over which it had no jurisdiction.The Court recorded all submissions and directed the ECI to file its counter affidavit..The dispute stems from the power struggle and chaos over AIADMK’s leadership after the death of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in December 2016.AIADMK’s two leaves party symbol was frozen by the ECI in March 2017. It was subsequently allotted to Palaniswami. In March 2023, the party announced that Palaniswami had been elected unopposed as the AIADMK general secretary after the Madras High Court rejected all interim applications challenging such appointment filed by Palaniswami’s rivals and expelled party leaders O Panneerselvam, PH Manoj Pandian and others.