The Madras High Court Bench here on Friday directed film actor Dhanush to be present in the court on Tuesday to verify whether he had birth marks as mentioned by an elderly couple who have initiated legal proceedings claiming he was their biological son.
The couple in the suit claimed that the actor had identification marks including a mole on his right collarbone and a scar on the right forearm as mentioned in the school Transfer Certificate (T.C.) of their son. The couple is seeking a monthly maintenance of ₹65,000 from Dhanush.
Justice G. Chockalingam issued the direction on a petition filed by the actor to quash the maintenance case filed by the couple before a Judicial Magistrate court at Melur near here in November last. The judge refused to budge despite the petitioner’s counsel pleading with the court to exempt his client from personal appearance. The counsel told the court that there were chances of the actor having flown out of the country either for film shooting or other purposes.
In such a case, copies of the actor’s passport, the visa obtained by him and the air tickets should be produced in the court on Tuesday to prove the date on which he left the country and by when would he be returning, the judge said. The order was passed after the Melur-based couple R. Kathiresan (65) and his wife K. Meenakshi (53) filed a counter affidavit accusing the actor of having filed a false affidavit, denying their claim, in the court on Wednesday.
“Simply filing an affidavit will not prove that the petitioner does not have such identification marks... No expert had verified those marks. There is also every possibility of disfiguration of the marks since they have now come to his knowledge,” the couple claimed. They also accused the actor of producing a fake birth certificate and ration card to disprove their claim of him being their son K. Kalaichelvan who dropped out of Class XI in 2002 and moved to Chennai for pursuing a career in acting.
Dhanush perplexed
In his affidavit, Mr. Dhanush had expressed surprise over the High Court Registry insisting upon him to identify himself as K. Kalaichelvan alias Dhanush K. Raja, son of R. Kathiresan in the cause title (titled of the proceedings in a court of law) of his quash petition. “I am not K. Kalaichelvan. I am K.Dhanush. I was formerly known as R.K. Vengadesha Prabhu,” the actor said and pleaded with the court to permit him to amend the cause title.
The 33-year-old actor said that he was born and brought up in Chennai though it was the couple’s case that their son was born and brought up in Madurai till 2002 before moving to Chennai to pursue a career in acting. Stating that he was born to R. Krishnamoorthy and K. Vijayalakshmi in Chennai on July 28, 1983, and got named as R.K. Vengadesha Prabhu, he said that his father as well as he had changed their names.
“My father changed his name from R. Krishnamoorthy to R. Kasthoory Raja. I changed my name from R.K. Vengadesha Prabhu to K. Dhanush,” he said and produced government gazette notifications to substantiate his claim. Further, relying upon a copy of a ration card issued to his family in 2005, he pointed out it contains the names of his parents, brothers, sisters and himself. “My brother Selva Ragavan is a renowned film director,” he added.
Further, stating that it was he who gave a vakalatnama (authorisation given by a client to a lawyer to represent him in court) to his counsel for getting the maintenance case quashed, Mr. Dhanush said: “Since the High Court Registry took the stand that the cause title set out in the maintenance case petition has to be maintained, I too had to maintain the same cause title. This honourable court may be pleased to permit me to amend the cause title.”
When contacted, a High Court official said that they cannot allow a petitioner who wants a lower court proceedings to be quashed to file the petition with a different cause title because it may lead to many other legal problems. “Though the cause title reads as K. Kalaichelvan alias Dhanush K. Raja, we have allowed the actor to identify himself as K. Dhanush, son of R. Kasthoory Raja, in the very first paragraph of his affidavit,” he pointed out.
