Chennai: The Madras High Court on Wednesday allowed the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and its former Law Minister C Ve Shanmugham to prefer an appeal against the recent ruling of a single judge quashing all the orders of the previous party-led government that enabled converting the residence of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa into a memorial.
A division bench of Justices Paresh Upadhyay and Sathi Kumar Sukumara Kurup granted the permission to file the third-party appeal and posted the matter for further hearing on December 20.
The single judge had earlier quashed all the orders starting from 2017 and culminating in the taking over of Jayalalithaa's Veda Nilayam residence at the posh Poes Garden here to convert it into a memorial for her.
Observing there was no need for a second memorial for Jayalalithaa, in addition to the one on the Marina and that it was a waste of State exchequer and also no public interest was involved, Justie N Seshasayee on November 24 had set aside the orders. The memorial was formally inaugurated in January this year by then chief minster K Palaniswami.
Representing the AIADMK and Shanmugham, senior counsel A L Somayaji submitted the party has a right to agitate against the orders of the single judge.
AIADMK was the ruling party in the State when the acquisition proceedings were initiated. Since there was a change in the administration and the DMK has now come to power, the present government has not and would not prefer any appeal. Hence, the AIADMK can very well take up the issue and file the appeals, he said.
Opposing the plea, counsel for J Deepak, nephew of Jayalalithaa, submitted that the party has no locus standi to prefer the appeal as the acquisition was made by the State and not the party. The plea seeking leave to appeal has become infructuous as the present government had already handed over the keys to him and his sister J Deepa, he added.
