Chennai,  The division bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday adjourned the appeal by AIADMK leader Edappadi K. Palaniswami against the order of a single judge bench in favour of the other leader, O.Panneerselvam.

The division bench comprising of Justices M. Duraiswamy and Sunder Mohan took the decision to adjourn the case to August 25, after senior Counsel representing Panneerselvam, P.H Aravind Pandian argued that he had serious objections to the grant of interim stay but was willing to advance the arguments directly on the appeals.

The senior counsel and former Advocate General of Tamil Nadu, Vijay Narayan representing Palaniswami said that he did not have any objections to the court's decision, but wanted to complete the hearing at the earliest. He said that there was a deadlock in the functioning of the AIADMK party due to the single judge's order.

Advocate Vijay Narayan suggested to the court that the final hearing be completed on Thursday and the judges agreed to it. The court asked the senior counsel and third senior counsel Guru Krishnakumar to reduce the arguments as short as possible.

A single bench judge of the Madras High Court represented by Justice G. Jayachandran on August 17 nullified the General Council meeting of the AIADMK held at Vangaram on July 11 on a plea by Panneerselvam and others. The July 11 general council meeting had expelled Panneerselvam and had anointed Palaniswami as the interim general secretary of the party.

The single judge bench had ordered the status quo ante as on June 23 while disposing of three petitions by Panneerselvam and general council member P. Vairamuthu against the July 11 general council meeting.

The AIADMK is facing an acute crisis between the two factions led by Palaniswami and Panneerselvam, both former Chief Ministers and senior leaders of the party.