Chennai Feb 23 PTI The Madras High Court on Wednesday held that the elections conducted to the South Indian Artistes Association SIAA are valid A division bench of Justices Pushpa Sathyanarayana and Mohammed Shaffiq which upheld the elections conducted on June 23 2019 as valid directed the authorities concerned to take up the counting process Though the judges said that the counting and declaration of the results should be made in four weeks they restrained the authorities from declaring the results for three weeks This followed a plea from the counsel for the aggrieved parties to grant time to appeal against the order before the Supreme Court The judges ordered the election authorities of SIAA to secure the ballot boxes kept in the lockers of the South Indian Bank and carry out the process for counting votes The election to the SIAA had been entangled in long legal battles after the issuance of the poll notification in 2018 After the tenure of the office-bearers -- actors Vishal Nassar and Karthi -- ended in 2018 their term was extended by six months with the approval of the executive committee Subsequently the polls were announced and a retired judge of the High Court -- E Padmanabhan -- was announced as the election officer The election was conducted under his supervision on June 23 2019 when the present legal battle started Putting an end to the issue for the time being the bench passed the present order today PTI CORR SA SA

Chennai October 25 PTI The Madras High Court on Monday reserved orders on an appeal from Tamil actor Vijay who sought removal of adverse remarks in an order by a single judge in a matter related to his earlier plea seeking exemption from entry tax for an imported car A Division Bench of Justices Pushpa Sathyanarayana and Mohammed Shaffiq reserved orders after listening to arguments advanced by Vijays senior counsel The counsel told the judges that the unwanted remarks made by Justice S M Subramaniam in July this year had hurt the sentiments of his client and lowered his image in the eyes of his fans and friends As directed by the single judge his client had remitted the remainder of entry tax of about Rs 32 lakh to the Commercial Tax Department in August Vijay alias C Joseph Vijay was also ready to donate money for any public purpose preferably to the Adyar Cancer Institute the senior advocate added and sought the court to expunge the unnecessary disparaging remarks made by the single judge against his client When the bench wondered as to whether the remarks of the single judge had not resulted in more popularity to the actor the senior counsel replied that it had in fact hurt his client Filing a petition challenging the demand for entry tax was not a sin The remarks had damaged his reputation and painted him as some sort of a criminal the counsel contended Vijay had imported a Rolls Royce Ghost car from United Kingdom in 2012 Justice Subramaniam had made certain observations vis-a-vis Vijay Among other things the judge had observed that reel heroes should be real heroes in real life After imposing a cost of Rs 1 lakh on him the judge had directed him to remit the remaining amount of 80 per cent of the entry tax PTI COR VGN VGN