Petition filed against CPI state council election

A petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking to declare the office bearers' elections held during the CPI Tamil Nadu unit conference as void and illegal.
The petitioners Sekhar and Venugopal, workers of the party, sought a direction to declare the composition and convening of the state conference by D Pandian, CPI state council member, void and illegal.
All the acts done during the meet between February 25 to 28 in Coimbatore, including the conduct of elections to the state council should also be declared void and illegal, he submitted.
Justice K Ravichandra Baabu on Wednesday ordered issue of notices to Pandian and others and posted the matter for hearing after three weeks.

The petitioners contended that Pandian had no authority to conduct the meet.
They said 488 delegates participated in the meet. The conference elected 120 persons as members of the State Council and it was communicated to all members by a circular on March 5 by the newly-elected Secretary R Mutharasan.

The election conducted in the meet suffers from various illegalities and are contrary to the provisions of the constitution of CPI. Pandiyan, abusing his position had enabled persons who are unqualified to attend the conference and vote in the elections to the Council, they submitted.
Since the entire conduct of election is tainted with illegalities and consequently vitiated, the elected members cannot represent in the All India Party Conference. Their participation in the conference will be contrary to the provisions of the constitution of the party, they submitted.

The petitioners prayed that they may be permitted to sue some of the elected members through an order of the court.
They also sought an order of ad interim injunction restraining the 120 elected members from in any way exercising the functions of the party State Council pending disposal of the suit. They also sought to restrain the members from attending all-India party conference.