I am using jquery tablesorter. When the page loads, I have a code to highlight the background color of certain rows in the table. Since tablesorter is used I guess it overrides the css and not allowing to change the background color of the rows. This is the code. This function automatically loads when the page gets loaded. I removed table-sorter to the table and tried this. It works. I have to get it to work with the table-sorter applied. $(document).ready(function() { var row, len, results; row = 0; results = []; while (row < len) { if ($("#tab1 #example_"+row+"chkbx").is(":checked")) { $("#tab1 #example_" + row).css("background-color", "#c6b79f"); } row++; } return results; });