CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has stayed all further proceedings in a case pending before the judicial magistrate-IV court in Salem against former state BJP president K Annamalai for allegedly making a provocative speech on Muthuramalinga Thevar. Justice M Nirmal Kumar granted the interim relief while hearing a petition filed by Annamalai seeking to quash the case.
The magistrate court had taken cognisance of a complaint filed by V Piyush alleging Annamalai had made the speech causing enmity between different groups.
The counsel appearing for the BJP leader, advocate RC Paul Kanagaraj, submitted that the complaint was filed with an intent to derive political mileage and hence it is defective and legally unsustainable.
He said the complainant, to fabricate a cause of action, has embellished the petitioner’s speech with imaginative distortions, criminalising a mere riposte to the ruling party’s inflammatory remarks equating Sanatana Dharma with diseases.
This frivolous prosecution, bereft of mens rea or likelihood of harm, warrants quashing, he told the court. He noted that the magistrate has proceeded to take cognisance without affording the petitioner any opportunity to be heard or to file objections to the complaint thereby proceeding in a manner contrary to the principles of natural justice and the settled requirement that a limited opportunity of hearing may be granted to the accused.