The Madras High Court Bench here on Thursday chose to conduct in-camera proceedings on a petition filed by film actor Dhanush to quash a maintenance case filed against him by an elderly couple from Melur near here in November last. The couple had claimed to be his biological parents.
Justice P.N. Prakash heard arguments on the quash petition in his chambers in order to “maintain the privacy of both the parties” involved in the litigation and adjourned the hearing till March 20.
Great stress
Earlier, the actor’s counsel told the judge in the open court that the case had attracted a lot of media attention and caused a great amount of stress.
“The petitioner is being trolled on the social media. Online polls are conducted on who could be his father... A roving enquiry has also been conducted on the petition filed by me to quash the case. First, I was subjected to physical examination in the court and now an application has been filed by the respondents to conduct a DNA test,” the counsel told the judge.
Agreeing with him that the case had indeed attracted a lot of media attention, the judge decided to hear the case in-camera to avoid embarrassment to both sides.
Another single judge of the High Court had on March 2 stayed all further proceedings in the maintenance case pending before a Judicial Magistrate in Melur until further orders to be passed on the quash petition.
The interim stay was granted after criticising the counsel for the Melur-based couple for making an application for DNA test after the quash petition was posted for final hearing.
R. Kathiresan (65) and K. Meenakshi (53) of Melur had sought for a monthly maintenance of ₹65,000 after claiming the actor to be their son K. Kalaichelvan.
According to the couple, their son had studied up to Class X in a government high school in Melur before joining a government higher secondary school in Sivaganga district. He dropped out of Class XI in 2002 and went to Chennai to pursue his interests in film acting, they said, and accused the actor of failing to take care of them. Denying their claim in toto, the actor contended that he was born and brought up in Chennai. He also accused the Melur couple of filing a false case to extort money from him.
