A week after her dramatic return from the prison, expelled AIADMK general secretary and close aide of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa, V.K. Sasikala has begun her legal battle towards reclaiming her lost position in the AIADMK.
Sasikala and her nephew TTV Dhinakaran have approached the Registry of the city civil court seeking early listing of a civil suit filed by them against the decisions taken by the AIADMK general council to expel her. The civil lawsuit which was filed in the Madras High Court in 2017 and subsequently transferred to the city civil court has been listed for hearing on March 15.
In September 2017, soon after the AIADMK general council expelled her and amended the party bylaws, Sasikala filed a lawsuit in the Madras High Court saying that all actions of Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and other office-bearers of the party are illegal and against the bylaws of the AIADMK. She also sought the court, through her petition, to declare that Palaniswami, Panneerselvam, and other office bearers Dindigul C. Sreenivasan, S. Semmalai and AIADMK presidium chairman E. Madhusoodhanan are not members of the party. She also asked the court to direct them to restrain from operating the bank accounts of the party.
Following this, the Madras HC Justice C.V. Karthikeyan, on November 2, 2017 passed an interim order asking the party office incharge P. Mahalingam to safeguard all the documents. He was also directed to submit a list of records and registers with the court. Madras High Court also directed the managers of three bank branches, in which the AIADMK had accounts, to furnish details of transactions carried out between December 29, 2016 and November 29, 2017.
After this, in December last year, the case was transferred from the High Court to a city civil court as the pecuniary jurisdiction of the High Court having been increased from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 1 crore. Now after the return of Sasikala, on Monday, her lawyer N. Raja Senthoor Pandian submitted a letter to the registry of the city civil court requesting for early listing of the case. "The case has been listed for hearing on March 15,” says Pandian.
ALSO READ
- Who controls PMK? The deepening rift between S. Ramadoss and son Anbumani
- Why 97.37 lakh voters were deleted from Tamil Nadu's electoral rolls? CEO explains
- Tamil Nadu draft electoral rolls released: This district has the highest number of voters deleted
- Tamil Nadu polls: Vijay's war on DMK is creating new challenge for AIADMK; inside TVK leader’s strategy to claim MGR and Jayalalithaa's legacy
- All eyes on Erode as 35,000 expected for Vijay's crucial TVK rally
It may be recalled that the AIADMK seniors including Madhusoodhanan had approached the Director General of Police against Sasikala using the AIADMK party flag, showing that the party seniors were shaken by her return. Incidentally Palaniswami, after a meeting with the BJP leadership in Delhi on January 28, said that there was "no chance" in taking Sasikala back into the party. But Sasikala, set out from Bengaluru, after completing her incarceration, in Jayalalithaa's car flaunting the AIADMK party flag.
"After Amma's birthday on February 24, you will know what will happen. Chinnamma will not give up her fight to reclaim the party," Dhinakaran told during a press conference in Trichy on Wednesday.
Sources also say that Sasikala might soon approach the Election Commission of India to claim the two-leaves symbol and the name of the party which was allotted to the EPS-OPS faction.
