Madras High Court quashes criminal defamation case against T.N. Speaker Appavu

The Madras High Court on Friday (October 25, 2024) quashed a criminal defamation case filed by an All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) spokesperson against Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker M. Appavu for a speech delivered by the latter at a private book release event held in Chennai on November 21, 2023.

The Madras High Court on Friday (October 25, 2024) quashed a criminal defamation case filed by an All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) spokesperson against Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker M. Appavu for a speech delivered by the latter at a private book release event held in Chennai on November 21, 2023.

Justice G. Jayachandran allowed a petition filed by Mr. Appavu, through senior counsel P. Wilson, for quashing the private complaint pending before a special court for legislators in Chennai and doubted the locus standi of AIADMK spokesperson RM. Babu Murugavel to lodge the complaint on behalf of his party.

The judge pointed out that even the party’s senior leader D. Jayakumar had made a press statement claiming that the Speaker appeared to have made the remarks at the book release event in his eagerness to secure a Cabinet berth, but the leader did not claim that the reported remarks were defamatory in nature.

Justice Jayachandran said that Mr. Murugavel, who was also the party’s legal wing secretary, did not have proper authorisation to file the private complaint on behalf of the party, accusing the Speaker of having defamed it by making certain unsubstantiated claims during the course of his speech.

In his case before the Special Court, the complainant had accused the Speaker of having claimed that around 40 AIADMK Members of the Legislative Assembly were ready to join the DMK after Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016 and that a prominent AIADMK leader had contacted him to facilitate the shifting of loyalties.

Though such an inclination on the part of those MLAs was taken to the notice of the incumbent Chief Minister M.K. Stalin (who was also the president of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and then Leader of the Opposition), he refused to come to power without obtaining the people’s mandate, the Speaker had reportedly said.

Contending that the Speaker had actually narrated a “fictitious” incident to the audience at the book release function with the sole intent of defaming the AIADMK, the complainant insisted on punishing him for criminal defamation under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).