Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Monday filed criminal defamation complaints against two newspapers for publishing reports allegedly blaming the State government for last month’s floods that marooned Chennai.
City Public Prosecutor M.L. Jegan moved the complaints on behalf of the Chief Minister against the English daily The Times of India and Tamil daily Dinamalar before the Principal Sessions Court, Chennai.
He submitted that the former published a report ‘Delay in decision to open sluice gates caused flood of trouble’ in its edition dated December 9, 2015 and the Dinamalar published a report ‘Perumalai vellamaaga mattriya Tamilaga arasu’ (TN government converts torrential rains into floods’ on December 12, 2015, both of which were malicious and defamatory.
Hence, its editors and publishers were liable to be prosecuted for defaming the Chief Minister, he contended.
