SC to hear AMMK's plea for 'pressure cooker' symbol

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a plea by the AMMK leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran for allotment of a common symbol ("pressure cooker") to his party for the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Declining to hold an urgent hearing as sought by an advocate for the AMMK in the course of mentioning, the bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna said that the plea would be heard on Friday.

In a set-back to Dhinakaran, the Delhi High Court had on February 28 dismissed the AMMK's challenge to the Election Commission's decision of awarding the "two leaves" symbol to the state's ruling AIADMK led by Chief Minister E.K. Palaniswami.

After the AIADMK had split, the EC had, on November 23, 2017, recognised Palaniswami's group as the real AIADMK and alloted it the poll symbol.

The high court had noted that figures show a clear majority enjoyed by the faction led by Palaniswami.

On February 7, an apex court bench of Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice Ajay Rastogi asked the Election Commission to consider allotting the "pressure cooker" symbol to Dhinakaran's AMMK.

However, the order had asked the poll panel to consider allotting a common symbol to the AMMK if, for some reason, the AMMK's appeal against the November 23, 2017 order could not be disposed of by the high court in four weeks. - IANS