MADURAI: The High Court Bench here quashed an FIR filed by Madurai police in 2017 against an advocate and documentary maker Divyabharathi in connection with her work 'Kakkoos'.
Justice N Anand Venkatesh passed the order while allowing a petition filed by the advocate seeking direction for the same. She was booked following a complaint filed on March 3, 2017, that her documentary 'Kakkoos', which talks about manual scavenging, may create a communal problem.
However, Divyabharathi denied the allegations saying that she had quoted the names of communities solely based on government data and that her work was aimed at spreading awareness against the practice of manual scavenging.
Earlier, the State Youth Wing Secretary of Puthiya Tamizhagam, Bhaskar Madhuram launched a complaint with the city police stating that he was shocked to see the wrong portrayal of his community people in the documentary film.
The documentary falsely projects his community people to be engaging in manual scavenging as occupation, while the community people are primarily engaged in agricultural activities, the complaint read. He also added that this comes at a time when several protests are being staged seeking the exclusion of the community from the Scheduled Caste list.
Challenging this, Divya approached the Court to quash the FIR filed against her.