Madurai (PTI): Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Saturday claimed that AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami would meet the same fate as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, at the hands of the BJP.

Only till 2026 TN Assembly polls, Palaniswami will be AIADMK chief, and later the BJP would "ease him out of office," Stalin alleged and slammed Palaniswami as an epitome of "betrayal".

"The BJP will dislodge Palaniswami from the top AIADMK post of general secretary, and bring a leader of its choice to that position," he said after welcoming scores of O Panneerselvam's supporters into the DMK in a rally organised in Madurai.

The expelled AIADMK leader had joined the DMK along with his former MP son O Ravindranath, in the presence of Stalin on February 27 in Chennai.

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New Delhi (PTI): A court can reject anticipatory bail of an accused but it has no jurisdiction to direct him to surrender before the trial court, the Supreme Court has said.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Ujjal Bhuyan made the observation while hearing a plea filed by a man accused of cheating and forgery.

"If the court wants to reject the anticipatory bail, it may do so, but the court has no jurisdiction to say that the petitioner should now surrender," the bench said.

The Jharkhand High Court had rejected anticipatory bail plea of the accused and asked him to surrender and seek regular bail.

In this case, a complaint had been filed before a magistrate alleging offences under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged document) and 120B read with 34 of the IPC, in connection with a land dispute.

The high court had dismissed the second anticipatory bail application of the accused on the ground that no new circumstances were shown.

It had relied on its earlier order rejecting his first anticipatory bail plea, in which the court directed the petitioner to surrender before the trial court and seek regular bail in terms of the decision in Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI.

The top court said such a direction was wholly without jurisdiction and said that if a court chooses to reject anticipatory bail, it may do so, but it cannot compel the accused to surrender.