Madras High Court stays non-bailable warrant against Surya, 7 other actors

CHENNAI: Two days after an Udhagamandalam court issued non-bailable warrants against eight Tamil actors including Surya and Sarathkumar in a connection with a defamation case, the Madras high court has stayed execution of the warrant.

When the matter came up for hearing before Justice S. Vimala, the judge passed interim order. The judge said NBW will be kept in abeyance and it shall not be executed until further orders. On Tuesday, Ooty Judicial Magistrate Senthilkumar Rajavel issued NBWs against Suriya, Sarathkumar, Sathyaraj, Cheran, Vijayakumar, Vivek, Arun Vijay and Sripriya, after they failed to appear before the court for a second consecutive time.

On October 7, 2009, they allegedly made statements degrading the reputation of a leading Tamil news daily and a journalist attached to it, in a meeting of the South Indian Film Artistes Association.

Angered by this a journalist Rozario Maria Soosai of Udhagamandalam, filed a criminal defamation complaint in the court against the eight actors in 2009. As the actors failed to appear before the judicial magistrate court in Udhagamandalam on May 15, 2017, the JM, Senthilkumar Rajavel, issued non-bailable warrants against them.