Supreme Court upholds Madras HC's order on 'mango' symbol by PMK founder

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a Madras High Court's order dismissing two petitions by PMK founder S Ramadoss for a direction to the Election Commission to either allow his faction to use the 'mango' symbol during the upcoming assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry or freeze the symbol altogether.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi, however, asked Ramadoss to approach the civil court.

Ramadoss has been engaged in a legal battle to restrain his son Anbumani from using the party's name, flag or symbol.

The bench said that the poll panel cannot decide a dispute over the allocation of symbols of an unregistered political party.

The court said that if the application is filed by Tuesday for a remedy, the civil court may adjudicate it expeditiously within three days.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for the PMK, said that if the poll panel unfroze the symbol, anyone could be allotted the party's 'mango' symbol by a lottery system.

Senior advocates Meenakshi Arora, Mukta Gupta and Shyam Divan, appearing for other respondents, said the civil court alone can decide the issue, as the poll panel cannot adjudicate the dispute over symbols concerning unregistered political parties.

However, Singh contended that the poll panel will eventually have to decide the party's symbol.

In the order, the bench said, ''The high court appears to be right in the impugned judgment; the allocation of symbol among the two rival groups of an unrecognised political party cannot be decided by the ECI. However, this does not mean that an aggrieved party will be left remediless.''

Since the petitioner has already filed a civil suit, it is open to the petitioner to move an appropriate application before the civil court, the court added.

"If such an application is filed by tomorrow, we direct the civil court to decide the same after hearing the parties and in accordance with law within a period of three days," the bench said.

The Pattali Makkal Katchi challenged the Madras High Court's February 20 decision, which dismissed two petitions filed by Ramadoss.

Ramadoss sought a direction to the poll panel to either allow his faction to use the 'mango' symbol during the ensuing assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry or freeze the symbol entirely so that the faction led by his son, Anbumani, could not use it either.

Elections to 234 assembly seats are scheduled on April 23, with the counting slated for May 4.

On February 20, the high court refused to entertain the two petitions after agreeing with the EC's submission that factional disputes in a political party could only be resolved through a civil court decree, and no such direction as sought by the PMK party founder could be issued to the EC.