MADURAI
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday reserved its orders on a plea filed by an AIADMK cadre who sought a direction for the appointment of general secretary to the party. Justice V. Bhavani Subbaroyan questioned the maintainability of the petition.
B. Ramkumar Adityan of Thoothukudi, in his petition, said that following the demise of Jayalalithaa, the general secretary of the party, an election should have been conducted to appoint a new incumbent.
As an interim measure, the general council of the AIADMK unanimously chose V.K. Sasikala as the general secretary, until formal election. However, in a turn of events, she was convicted on charges of corruption and was currently lodged at the Central Prison in Bengaluru. Following this, T.T.V. Dhinakaran was chosen as the deputy general secretary.
Subsequently there was a split and Mr. Dhinakaran was ousted from the party. The petitioner claimed that the post was left vacant and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami were acting as coordinator and joint coordinator respectively, taking over the powers of general secretary.
He sought a direction to the Election Commission to appoint a general secretary and said that he/she alone could appoint members to or remove them from the general council. The general secretary alone had powers and responsibilities to convene the executive committee and general council meetings and initiate disciplinary proceedings, he added.