Sanatana Dharma row | Udhayanidhi Stalin has played a “fraud on the Constitution,” argues Senior Counsel before Madras HC

Appearing before Justice Anita Sumanth, Senior Counsel T.V. Ramanujam says, the Minister has violated Article 25 of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion

Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development Udhayanidhi Stalin. | Photo Credit: Akhila Easwaran

Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development Udhayanidhi Stalin has played a “fraud on the Constitution” by calling for the annihilation of Sanatana Dharma and hence a writ of quo warranto, calling upon him to explain under what authority is he continuing to hold the positions of Minister as well as a MLA, is fully maintainable, Senior Counsel T.V. Ramanujam argued before the Madras High Court on October 11.

Appearing before Justice Anita Sumanth, the Senior Counsel said, he was not predicating his case solely on the ground of the Minister having violated his oath of office but on the more important ground of a fraud having been played on the Constitution by speaking against a particular community. Hence, the writ petitioner T. Manohar was fully entitled to invoke Article 226 (writ jurisdiction of the High Court) of the Constitution, he contended.

The submission was made after Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram representing the State government, Senior Counsel P. Wilson representing Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin and N. Jothi representing Minister for Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments P.K. Sekarbabu in unison questioned the very maintainability of the three quo warranto petitions that had been filed against the two Ministers and also against DMK MP A. Raja.

The Senior Counsel contended that the cases were politically motivated and that they had been filed for publicity. They said, no writ of quo warranto would lie against their clients and questioned the propriety behind the writ petitioners had filed the videos of the purported speeches against Sanatana Dharma in a thumb drive. The counsel contended that the High Court rules do not permit the submission of evidence in electronic devices.

It was also brought to the notice of the court that even when such electronic devices get produced before trial courts in criminal trials, it was necessary to submit them along with certificates issued by the competent authority under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act. Mr. Wilson stated that the thumb drives submitted on behalf of the petitioners must be rejected in limine since the authenticity of their contents was questionable.

However, after hearing their preliminary submissions, the judge decided to begin hearing Senior Counsel Mr. Ramanujam, G. Rajagopalan and G. Karthikeyan, representing the three writ petitioners, first before hearing the A-G and other senior counsel representing the respondents. Accordingly, Mr. Ramanujam commenced his arguments and said, he was placing strong reliance on the “fraud on the Constitution” played by Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin.

Stating that a legislator had no right to hurt the sentiments of those who follow Sanatana Dharma, he said, the call given by the Minister for its annihilation was in direct violation of Article 25 of the Constitution which guarantees the freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion. Since only he could complete his submissions by the end of the day, the judge decided to hear all other counsel on Thursday.

The judge told the A-G and the senior counsel for the Ministers as well as the MP that they could argue on the maintainability of the writ petitions too.