JUDGMENT

1. The background upon which the Suits in which these Applications came to be filed would be relevant to be noted. I stand benefited by the judgment of the Hon''ble Apex Court in a Civil Appeal No.1392 of 2023, dated 23.02.2023, which has been extensively relied upon by the Learned Senior counsel appearing for the respective parties in these applications. The Hon''ble Apex Court in the aforesaid judgment had in detail, dealt with the reasons on which the Civil Appeal had come before the Court. The relevant paragraphs in the aforesaid judgment is extracted hereunder:-

“The matters in issue essentially relate to the internal management of a political party, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which is registered with the Election Commission of India. This political party, said to be having the primary cadre consisting of more than 1.5 crore members, has its own byelaws, which have been amended from time to time. The two upper levels of party structure include the Central Executive Committee and the General Council of the Central Organization. Though, in the scheme of byelaws, the topmost position in the party was earlier assigned to the General Secretary but, after the demise of the then General Secretary on 05.12.2016, the party organisation went through a sea of changes and ultimately, a system of joint leadership, by Co-ordinator and Joint Co-ordinator, was established by way of amendment of byelaws on 12.09.2017. However, the propositions for further amendments have met with divergent views of different factions within the party and have led to these litigations in as many as at least five civil suits. The prayers for temporary injunction during the pendency of these civil suits have led to different orders at different stages by the High Court of Judicature at Madras on the Original side and on the Appellate side as also by this Court.

5. For introductory purposes, we may indicate that in the first three civil suits, being CS Nos.102 of 2022, 106 of 2022 and 111 of 2022, various applications seeking interim reliefs were dealt with by an order dated 22.06.2022 whereby, the learned Single Judge of the High Court declined to grant any injunction against the meeting of the General Council scheduled to be held on 23.06.2022. This order was challenged by one of the plaintiffs in an intra-court appeal, OSA No.160 of 2022; and therein, by an order dated 23.06.2022, as passed after an early morning hearing, the Division Bench of the High Court, though allowed the said scheduled meeting of the General Council but, placed fetters on its scope by providing that no decision shall be taken on any other matter except 23 items of draft resolution. The said order dated 23.06.2022 came to be challenged in this Court in the three appeals arising out of Special Leave Petition (C) Nos. 11237 of 2022, 11578 of 2022 and 11579 of 2022 in this batch of matters. By way of an interim order dated 06.07.2022, this Court stayed the operation and effect of the said order dated 23.06.2022 and further to that, the next proposed meeting of the General Council slated to be held on 11.07.2022 was also permitted but while leaving it open to the parties to seek any other interim relief before the learned Single Judge dealing with the civil suits. Before the aforesaid order dated 06.07.2022 by this Court, two more civil suits, being CS Nos.118 of 2022 and 119 of 2022, came to be filed before the High Court against the said proposed meeting dated 11.07.2022. Therein again, a learned Single Judge of the High Court conducted early morning hearing on 11.07.2022 and declined the interim relief. The said meeting dated 11.07.2022 was, accordingly, held at the scheduled time and various resolutions were adopted therein but, the said order dated 11.07.2022 was subjected to challenge in this Court and, by an order dated 27.09.2022, this Court remanded the matter for reconsideration. Thereafter, the interim relief applications in the