CHENNAI: After an hour of midnight hearing, the special bench of Madras high court has adjourned to 8 am the hearing of plea moved by DMK seeking direction to the state to allow space to lay mortal remains of former chief minister and DMK leader Karunanidhi at Marina.

The bench comprising Additional Chief Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh and Justice SS Sundar passed the order on an urgent petition moved by DMK challenging the press release issued by the Tamil Nadu government denying space to bury mortal remains of former chief minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi who passed away at 6.10pm on Tuesday.

Moving the plea on behalf of DMK organising secretary senior counsel P Wilson submitted that the five-time chief minister Karunanidhi is regarded as God-father of millions of Tamil people across the world and that it is right and proper to give this leader his due respects by laying his mortal remains next to his beloved leader 'Aringnar Anna' to fulfill the wishes of millions of Tamil.

"At this juncture the lease of opposition MK Stalin met the Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami in person and made an application to allot space in Anna Square in Marina near the tomb of Annadurai to lay the mortal remains of Karunanidhi," Wilson said.

But the request was not accepted and instead the government issued a press release offering to allot 2 acres of land near Gandhi Mandapam assailing which the DMK has moved the urgent plea at around 9 pm on Tuesday.

Battery of DMK lawyers led by Wilson met the Acting Chief Justice at his official residence in Greenways Road and sought permission to move the petition on urgent basis. Initially, the judge said that he would hear the plea on Wednesday. But as Wilson insisted for an urgent hearing considering the situation, the judge asked the counsel to file a formal petition, get it numbered by the high court registry and inform the government.

At about 9.30pm, Wilson left to the court to file the petition and informed the government. At 11.30pm additional advocate generals PH Aravindh Pandian, SR Rajagopal, government pleader TR Rajagopalan along with senior advocate CS Vaidyanathan reached the residence of the Acting Chief.

After an hour, Wilson and his team reached the residence but the hearing could not be commenced as case bundle was not produced by court officials completing the numbering process.

While the everyone was waiting for the case bundles to be delivered by court officers, advocate Duraiswamy and K Balu whose petitions seeking to remove Jayalalithaa 's mortal remains from Marina are alter pending before the HC. They claimed that they were here to withdraw their pleas so that it would not be an impediment for getting space to Karunanidhi. However, another petitioner Traffic Ramasamy calcined through his counsel that he is not willing to withdraw his plea.

Finally at about 12.49am the case bundles were brought by registrar judicial M Jothiraman and registrar IT cum statistics C Kumarappan.

