Madras High Court stays Election Commission proceedings against AIADMK

The ‘two leaves’ symbol of the AIADMK. Image used for representational purposes
| Photo Credit: S. Siva Saravanan

The Madras High Court on Thursday (January 9, 2025) stayed all further proceedings pending before the Election Commission of India (ECI) in connection with the individual representations made by expelled All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) members P. Ravindranath, K.C. Palanisamy, Va Pugazhendi, and three others over intra-party affairs.

A Division Bench of Justices R. Subramanian and C. Kumarappan passed the interim order after admitting six writ petitions filed by the AIADMK, represented its general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami, to forbear the ECI from conducting quasi judicial proceedings regarding the internal affairs of the party on the basis of representations made by disgruntled individuals.

The interim relief was granted after senior counsel C. Aryama Sundaram, assisted by K. Gowtham Kumar, told the court that an individual named S. Surya Moorthi had submitted a representation to the ECI on February 12, 2024, for freezing AIADMK’s ‘two leaves’ election symbol and filed a writ petition in the High Court on February 14, 2024, seeking a direction to consider the representation.

The writ petition was disposed of by the Division Bench led by Justice Subramanian on December 4, 2024, after recording the submission made by the counsel for the ECI that it would take a decision on the representation within four weeks. Thereafter, the ECI began issuing notices to the AIADMK on every other representation that had been made by individuals who had been expelled from the party, he complained.

He said, the party had so far received notices on the representations filed by Mr. Ravindranath (son of former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam), Mr. Palanisamy, Mr. Pugazhendi, B. Ramkumar Adityan of Thoothukudi, P. Gandhi of Madurai and M.G. Ramachandiran of Ranipet. Mr. Sundaram questioned the jurisdiction of the ECI to decide on intra-party issues on the basis of such representations.

He said, the grievances raised by the six individuals would not fall either under the Representation of the People Act of 1950 or the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order of 1968. It was also brought to the notice of the court that several civil suits related to the party leadership dispute were still pending in the High Court though pleas for interim relief in them had been taken up to the Supreme Court but got rejected.

The senior counsel also pointed out that in a writ petition filed before the Delhi High Court in connection with the AIADMK leadership dispute, the ECI had filed an affidavit on August 7, 2023, stating that it “does not regulate or monitor intra party functions or organisational elections of any political party as the same is envisaged neither under the Constitution of India nor under any other law.”

The ECI had also made it clear that it only seeks results of the intra-party elections to be submitted before it for the purpose of updating its records. “There are multiple judgments by different Division Benches of the Madras High Court which had ruled that it is only a ministerial act performed by the ECI and nothing more. Therefore, now, it cannot conduct quasi judicial proceedings on the issue,” Mr. Sundaram argued.

On his part, ECI counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan told the Division Bench that the petitioner party appeared to have filed the writ petitions under a presumption that the ECI would venture into issues in which it had no jurisdiction. “Let the petitioner not presume so,” he said and argued a writ of prohibition against the ECI would not be maintainable at all.

After asking Mr. Rajagopalan to make all those submissions by way of a counter affidavit, Justice Subramanian made it clear that his Bench did not issue any direction to the ECI to consider Mr. Surya Moorthi’s representation. “We only recorded the statement of the counsel for ECI that the representation would be considered within four weeks and disposed of the writ petition,” he said.

The judge also wondered how the ECI could venture upon to decide intra-party issues especially when they were a subject matter of multiple civil suits pending before the High Court. He observed that the ECI appeared to have assumed jurisdiction to do so on the strength of the order passed by his Bench in Surya Moorthi’s case though that order does not confer any such jurisdiction.