MADURAI: The Madurai Bench allowed the State to prosecute a complaint against a person for making derogatory comments against former chief minister J Jayalalithaa by observing that the State can continue with the prosecution even though the defamed person is no more, if the alleged defamatory statement is aimed against the post and not the person.
Justice N Anand Venkatesh passed the order while hearing two quash petitions filed by three persons who were accused of making defamatory comments against Jayalalithaa. In his order, the Judge responds to queries on whether public prosecutor can continue to prosecute the two defamation complaints on behalf of Jayalalithaa, as she does not hold office and is no more.
The Judge concluded by observing, “Even if a person ceases to hold the Office/Post at a later point of time, the prosecution that was launched by the Public Prosecutor for the offence of defamation shall continue since the alleged defamatory statement is “Office / post centric” and not “person centric”.” He stated that, in such a case, the defamation complaint did not abate on the death of the former CM and the State is duty bound to continue with the proceedings. Stating thus, he dismissed one of the two quash petitions filed by one Karur Murali and allowed the public prosecutor to continue to prosecute the complaint against him. He allowed the other petition filed by two persons seeking to quash proceedings against them, as the offence in the complaint was more of a personal attack on Jayalalithaa than her office as CM.