Chennai: The Madras high court has ordered notice to the Editor, Printer and Publisher of a Tamil daily on a petition which sought to punish them for committing contempt of court by publishing an editorial which allegedly tended to scandalise and lower the authority of the court.
A Division bench comprising Justices R. Sudhakar and P. N. Prakash before whom the contempt petition filed by advocate S. Sathia Chandran came up for hearing, ordered statutory notice, returnable by four weeks, to R. Vaidianathan and R. K. Jhunjhunwala, Editor and Printer and Publisher respectively of Dinamani, a Tamil daily.
According to Sathia Chandran, following an inter-caste marriage between Illavarasan, a Dalit boy and Divya, an upper class (Vanniyar) girl, violence occurred in Dharmapuri. During the course of hearing of a petition, initially, the girl informed the court that she wanted to stay with her husband. But subsequently, due the pressure exerted by her community, she disowned her husband.
Thereafter, Illavarasan was found dead on July 4, 2013, under suspicious circumstances. On a plea, the court had on July 12, 2013, ordered a second autopsy. The next day, the Tamil daily published an editorial under the caption “Prelude to Disaster”, in which a scathing attack was made on the decision of the division bench.
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