A seven-foot portrait of former chief minister and late leader of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam J Jayalalithaa was unveiled in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Monday.

However, the main Opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam moved the Madras High Court seeking to remove the portrait, reported The Times of India. The DMK and the Congress did not attend the ceremony.

DMK leader MK Stalin said unveiling a portrait of a leader who was convicted by the Supreme Court in a disproportionate assets case would not only set the wrong precedent but was also “against the law”, The Hindu reported.

Jayalalithaa was the main accused in the case in which the party’s former General Secretary VK Sasikala was sentenced to four years in prison. Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016, before the Supreme Court upheld the conviction, resulted in the charges against her being abated.

Calling it a “black move”, Stalin claimed the portrait was unveiled in a hurry as a petition filed by a DMK party MLA against it was pending in court. “As the case will be taken up for hearing, the government has organised the event in a hurried manner before 9.30 am,” he said.

On Monday, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal unveiled the portrait. Palaniswami had earlier written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to be the chief guest, but decided to preside over the event as there was no reply from the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Congress, Vijayakanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam and some activists also reportedly criticised the government for putting up the portrait.

Jayaram Venkatesan, convenor of Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-corruption forum, told The Hindu that while there is “no legal bar against the unveiling of Jayalalithaa’s portrait, it is not appropriate. If she had been alive, she would have been in jail now.”