‘Savukku’ Shankar: Supreme Court questions Tamil Nadu on arrest of YouTuber
The Hindu
Savukku Shankar: Supreme Court accuses Tamil Nadu government of targetting YouTuber, says State is using its might to ensure that he stays in prison.
The Supreme Court on Friday (August 23, 2024) accused the Tamil Nadu government of targeting YouTuber ‘Savukku’ Shankar, saying the State is using its might to ensure that he stays in prison.
“Why are you doing all this? You put the man behind bars the moment he come out,” Justice J.B. Pardiwala, accompanied by Justice Manoj Misra, orally asked the Tamil Nadu government’s counsel.
The court deferred the hearing to August 27 on noting that another petition filed by Mr. Shankar’s mother A. Kamala, against the State’s second detention order against her son, was already listed for hearing on that date.
On August 14, 2024, the top court directed the Tamil Nadu police not to take any coercive measures against Mr. Shankar in the 16 FIRs registered against him in various districts of the State. Both mother and son are represented by advocates Balaji Srinivasan Harsha Tripathi and K. Gowtham Kumar.
Saying that all the FIRs pertain to an interview which Mr. Shankar gave to a YouTube channel, Mr. Srinivasan urged the court to quash all 16 of them.
The police, in their turn, claimed that the YouTuber had made derogatory remarks against women police personnel in the interview. Mr. Srinivasan countered that his client was merely exercising his right to free speech, for which the State was “not prosecuting, but persecuting him”.
On July 18, 2024, the Supreme Court ordered the interim release of Mr. Shankar, who had then been in preventive detention under the Tamil Nadu Goondas Act for since May 2024.
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