CHENNAI: The petitioner in the Sanatana Dharma case claimed Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development Udhayanidhi Stalin is trying to divert the issue and convert it into a ‘rivalry between two ideologies’.
In a reply to the minister’s counter-affidavit filed in the Madras High Court, the petitioner T Manohar, said he had openly declared that he would eradicate Hinduism but he is attempting to divert this main issue.
Manohar said that if he (Udhayanidhi) was duty conscious to interfere with the irrational beliefs and discrimination, he ought to have made a study about those issues and spoken specifically on those issues.
The petitioner said the minister should not have declared the annihilation of Hindu Dharma. Irrational beliefs are in existence in almost all religions and his pick and choice of Hindu religion alone would go to show that his motives are ulterior and intentions are malafide, said the reply Manohar filed through senior counsel TV Ramanujam.
It added that the High Court has very wide powers to issue a writ of qua warranted in this matter. He also said Udhayanidhi has zero knowledge of Sanatana Dharma and Hindu Dharma and alleged he has taken an ‘U’ turn from what he has spoken.
The petitioner said nobody has the right to declare eradication of a faith which is followed by 80% of the population of the country. “Even when a common man cannot do so, an elected member of the legislature and a minister surely has to refrain himself from making such declaration,” he said.
When Article 25 of the Constitution gives right to profess a religion and faith, the declaration that the faith has to be eradicated is ‘nothing but violation of the right’, he said, adding it is the judicial forum that has to intervene under Article 226 to ‘safeguard’ the right. He claimed Udhayanidhi’s speech is not only a breach of oath but also undermines the very objects and purposes of the Constitution and hence amounts to fraud on the Constitution.