Public speaker Dushyanth Sridhar sues temple activist Rangarajan Narasimhan in Madras HC

Public speaker Dushyanth Sridhar sues temple activist Rangarajan Narasimhan in Madras High Court.

Vedic scholar and orator Dushyanth Sridhar has sought the leave of the Madras High Court to institute a defamation suit against temple activist Rangarajan Narasimhan, demanding damages to the tune of ₹1 crore for having allegedly made abusive and derogatory remarks against him on social media.

Justice K. Kumaresh Babu on Thursday (April 3, 2025) granted time till April 29, 2025, for the activist to file his written objections to the leave application after he appeared in person and contended the suit ought to have been filed in Tiruchi, and not in Chennai, since he was a permanent resident of Srirangam.

Mr. Sridhar had sought the leave of the court before instituting the suit because he was a permament resident of Bengaluru, and the defendant was a permanent resident of Srirangam. Nevertheless, he wanted to institute the suit before the Madras High Court since most of his followers were based in Chennai.

The applicant’s counsel told the court his client was a chemical engineer who holds a bachelor’s as well as a master’s degree from the renowned Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS) at Pilani in Rajasthan. After completing his studies, he had taken to religious discourses.

The court was informed that the applicant was a distinguished and highly regarded Vedic scholar and orator on the principles of Sanatana Dharma. Fluent in English, Hindi, and Tamil, his talks on Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavata Mahapurana, Vishnu Purana, Divya Prabandham, and so on were sought-after, the counsel said.

He had delivered around 3,500 discourses across the globe and was an author of a bestseller book on Ramayana. However, for some reason, Mr. Narasimhan had begun making personal and vituperative attacks against the applicant on the social media since 2023, the counsel claimed.

Listing out all the comments made since 2023, the applicant said they were false, indecent, and crossed the limits of fair criticism. He urged the court to direct the activist to delete all those comments, refrain from making such comments in the future, and pay damages of ₹1 crore for causing disrepute.