A three-member bench of the Madras High Court has recused itself from hearing a writ petition challenging an order dated May 30 this year of the State government banning the controversial Tamil book titled ‘Meendezhum Pandiar Varalaru’, authored by K Senthil Mallar of Kechilapuram in Thoothukudi district.
When the matter came up on Thursday, Justices V Dhanapalan, R Subbiah and C T Selvam said that in view of a letter dated July 8 addressed to the Acting Chief Justice, they were of the view that the matter might be placed before the ACJ for necessary orders. Accordingly, they directed the Registry to place the petition before the ACJ for constitution of a different bench.
According to petitioner, he did a research on ‘Mallars’ community. After seven years, he discovered certain facts pertaining to Mallars. He wrote the book, which was published in May 2012.
So far, more than 1,000 copies had been sold. Till date no untoward incident had occurred. The action of the government was against Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution, the petitioner contended.
Meanwhile, Tamil Sanga Palagai founder MC Tamilpithan has filed a petition to implead himself as a party in the case. He submitted that the book was written only to degrade the other communities in the State and claim superiority in respect of a particular community, which would spoil the communal harmony between various community people living in TN as brothers and sisters. The entire people in the State were the best example in proving the theory of unity in diversity. But a single individual, to create commotion, unrest and to implement the theory of British regiment namely - divide and rule policy, had written this book without any documentary evidence to substantiate the theory evaluated in the book. The petitioner enclosed certain excerpts from the book to support his claim.