Chennai: The Madras high court has stayed all further proceedings in a defamation case against DMK president M.K.Stalin, pending before the special court for politicians cases (MP and MLA), Chennai.
Justice N.Anand Venkatesh granted the interim stay on a petition filed by Stalin, which sought to quash the defamation proceedings pending against him before the special court.
When the case came up for hearing, P.Kumaresan, counsel for Stalin, submitted that Stalin made the statement against an individual and not against him in the capacity of Chief Minister. Therefore, the Salem public prosecutor has no power to file the defamation complaint on behalf of the Chief Minister, he added.
State public prosecutor A.Natarajan submitted that Stalin made the allegations against the Chief Minister in his official capacity and hence, the public prosecutor can file a defamation complaint on behalf of the Chief Minister, he added.
The Salem public prosecutor filed the defamation complaint alleging that Stalin had made derogatory statements against the Chief Minister during his speech at a public meeting on September 18, 2018 at Salem. After the formation of the special court for politician cases, the case was transferred from Salem to special court in Chennai.
In his petition, Stalin submitted that the lower court failed to note that the allegations made against the Chief Minister does not amount to any defamation and with malicious motive to harass the petitioner the public prosecutor had filed the private complaint before the lower court and the allegations in the complaint do not make out a case for an offence under section 499 and 500 IPC. Making a complaint against an individual and the allegation in the said complaint cannot be said to be damaging the reputation of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and does not amount to defaming the reputation of any individual and therefore the complaint for an offence under section 499 and 500 IPC cannot be maintained. Hence the proceedings before the lower court were liable to be quashed, he added.
