Petitions challenging Jaya portrait in Assembly dismissed

The First Bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice A Selvam, before which the PILs came up, dismissed them for non-appearance of petitioners’ counsels. The petitions were filed by J Anbazhagan of DMK, S Duraisamy, C Kumaran, K Balu and ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy. 

Anbazhagan sought to quash a government order which does not prohibit display of portraits and photographs of Chief Ministers, who have been convicted and found guilty of corruption charges by a court of law. 

The petition by Duraisamy, an advocate, sought to remove the mortal remains of Jayalalithaa from Marina Beach and to forebear the government from raising any memorial for her with funds from the state exchequer at Marina or elsewhere. 

Kumaran, in his petition, also put forward a similar plea. 

Balu of Advocates Forum for Social Justice sought a direction to remove photos of Jayalalithaa and the name ‘Amma’ in government welfare schemes saying she was found guilty by the court in the disproportionate assets case. 

Social activist ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy in his plea sought for a direction to the authorities to scrap the proposal to build a memorial for Jayalalithaa at Marina. 

He also appealed for a direction to re-locate the existing memorials of all the late Chief Ministers to Gandhi Mandapam in Adyar area in the city. 

Later, the counsels for the petitioners approached the bench, which permitted them to file appropriate petitions for restoration.