Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president M.K. Stalin on Thursday told the Madras High Court that any blanket gag order restraining him from making speeches against Deputy Speaker Pollachi V. Jayaraman would have a “chilling effect” and directly affect his fundamental right to speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution.
In a counter affidavit filed before Justice P.T. Asha through his counsel S. Manuraj, the Leader of the Opposition said he could not be gagged from speaking against Mr. Jayaraman, especially when the latter belonged to the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and was holding the significant post of Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Stalin also claimed that Mr. Jayaraman had a “malicious and mala fide” intention behind the filing of a civil suit seeking damages of ₹1 crore from him for a public speech already made in Madurai on February 23, besides seeking an injunction restraining him from making defamatory and derogatory speeches against him in the future.
He pointed out that the Deputy Speaker was the chairman of the Committee of Privileges, which had issued show cause notices to him and other DMK MLAs for displaying gutkha sachets in the Assembly on July 19, 2017. He also informed the judge of having filed writ petitions in the High Court challenging the show cause notices on the grounds of mala fide and gross illegality.
Pointing out that those writ petitions had been taken up for final hearing by the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, the Leader of the Opposition said that it was in the light of those developments that the plaintiff had instituted the present suit and was attempting to obtain a gag order. Mr. Manuraj also told the court that Mr. Stalin’s son-in-law V. Sabarisan and T. Amirtham of Kalaignar TV too had filed their counter affidavits to the injunction application since the suit had been filed against them too. He said that Mr. Sabarisan and Kalaignar TV had also moved applications for rejecting the plaint since no case had been made out against them.
Advocate P.T. Perumal, representing yet another defendant R. Nakheeran Gopal, stated that he had also filed an application to reject the plaint. One more defendant S. Arivazhagan, Editor of Tamil magazine Junior Vikatan , was represented by N. Ramesh. After hearing all of them, Justice Asha directed the Registry to number the applications for rejection of plaint and list them on August 21.
