Justice M. Nirmal Kumar on Thursday adjourned the case to May 27 after directing petitioner’s counsel E. Raj Thilak to serve papers on an additional public prosecutor in dmk mp rs Barathi case
TAMIL NADUDMK MP moves HC in SC/ST case booked against him
Legal CorrespondentCHENNAICHENNAI 21 MAY 2020 21:56 ISTUPDATED: 21 MAY 2020 21:56 IST
R.S. Bharathi says he may have used infelicitous language but that does not call for filing an FIR
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Organising Secretary R.S. Bharathi has moved the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the Principal Sessions Court here to consider his bail application on the same day when he chooses to surrender in connection with a case booked under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989.
Mr. Bharathi, 73, also a Rajya Sabha member, said he might have used “infelicitous language or even language that caused offence to some members of the public but in the absence of the specific intent mentioned in the statute, the speech (delivered on February 15), however disagreeable, cannot be a ground for registration of a First Information Report.”
Justice M. Nirmal Kumar on Thursday adjourned the case to May 27 after directing petitioner’s counsel E. Raj Thilak to serve papers on an additional public prosecutor representing the Inspector of Teynampet Police Station as well as the advocate representing the complainant S.T. Kalyana Sundaram of Aadhi Tamilar Makkal Katchi (ATMK) based in Madurai.
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In his petition, the MP said the Greater Chennai police registered an FIR against him on March 12 for having delivered a speech at an event organised by Kalaignar Reading Circle on February 15. The long delay in lodging the complaint indicates the mala fide intention of the complainant, he added.
According to the complainant, the MP had claimed that it was former Chief Minister M. Karunanithi who had elevated erstwhile Supreme Court judge A. Varadarajan to the higher judiciary and the subsequent elevation of seven to eight persons from the Scheduled Castes as judges was nothing but alms provided by the Dravidian movement.
It was alleged by the complainant that the speech delivered by the MP was intended not only at disrespecting Justice Varadarajan, who had worked his way up the professional ladder from the lowest judicial post of a District Munsif, but also at promoting enmity, hatred, jealousy and ill will against members of the Scheduled Castes.
Denying all allegations, the MP said the complainant had selectively extracted a few lines from the speech, thus giving a misleading picture and eliminating the context behind the words spoken. He said the courts have always followed the sound practice of reading any speech in full in order to gather the intention of the speaker.
“The FIR nitpicks a few words here and there and assigns motives to stray sentences. The respondent police ought to have perused the whole speech without relying on the misleading extracts furnished by the complainant. The complainant must show prima facie that commission of cognisable offence has occurred,” the MP said.
He went on to state: “The petitioner has simply sought to give credit to the Dravidian movement for the appointment of judges from among members of the Scheduled Castes and more particularly to M. Karunanithi in the case of the late A. Varadarajan. The petitioner’s remarks were not intended to disrespect Justice A. Varadarajan or any other honourable judge.
“The petitioner drew a contrast with northern States and specifically sought to make a point that, in those States members of Scheduled Castes were not appointed as judges despite possessing necessary qualifications but in Tamil Nadu numerous judges belonging to the Scheduled Castes had been appointed without any discrimination on the basis of caste,” his petition read.
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