Apex Court Refuses To Quash FIRs Against BJP Leader H Raja For Alleged Derogatory Remarks Against Periyar, Karunanidhi And Kanimozhi

Raja, also made alleged derogatory remarks in a meeting held at Dindigul, against those who were working in the Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowments Department (HR & CE), allegedly demeaning the wives of those officers working in the Department.

The Bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra observed, “The SLP has found without any merit, therefore, dismissed.”

Senior Advocate Dama Naidu appeared for H Raja and submitted, “Any public personality, including your lordships, faces various comments…this is the price you pay for being a public personal…if there has been any motivated attack then it would have made sense…what is being said is that the reputation of the party has been derogated…somebody in opposition will always call names. Second thing is, he has never touched upon the Dravidian movement or its propagator…”

Justice Roy also remarked, “We are so impressed by your arguments that we will simply say dismissed…People in politics have to be circumspect about what they utter…somehow we are reducing the level of discourse..”

On August 29, 2023, the Madras High Court had passed orders dismissing the petitions filed by Raja seeking quashing of the FIRs against him, arising out of these remarks he had made. Assailing the orders passed by the Madras High Court, Raja filed the present Special Leave Petition.

The first incident took place on March 16, 2018, when Raja had tweeted remarks allegedly demeaning Periyar, who is considered the father of the Dravidian Movement. The High Court in that case had observed, “The tweet that was circulated by the petitioner certainly will provoke the class of persons, who follow Periyarism and has the propensity to result in violence and disturbance to public order. In view of the same, on the face of it, it constitutes an offence u/s. 153, 504, 505 (1)(b) and 505 (1)(c) of IPC.”

In the second incident, which took place on April 18, 2018, Raja had allegedly tweeted derogatory statements about Former Chief Minister Karunanidhi and his daughter Kanimozhi, tarnishing their image in the eyes of the general public and which had the propensity to create unrest among the followers and lead to a law and order situation.

The High Court in this regard had said, “It must also be kept in mind that the tweet message pertained to the late former Chief Minister of the State of Tamil Nadu and who is considered to be one of the most important driving force of the Dravidian movement. The people of Tamil Nadu carry a lot of respect for this leader and any damaging messages on the leader will have a negative impact in the society and will certainly create disturbance in the State of Tamil Nadu. That part, the message also touches upon his daughter, who is a sitting Member of Parliament and the message on the face of it, characterises her as an illegitimate child. Such characterisation has a negative connotation and it virtually bastardizes the daughter of the former Chief Minister. Hence, such a comment/message will certainly cause disturbance and disruption in public peace. That apart, it also outrages the daughter of the former Chief Minister and portrays her in an insensitive manner intending to insult the daughter of the former Chief Minister. This is done through tweeting the message from the twitter account of the petitioner".

Lastly, Raja, in a meeting held at Dindigul on September 19, 2018, had made alleged insulting and derogatory remarks against those who were working in the HR & CE Department and demeaning the wives of those authorities working in the HR & CE Department. The various officers belonging to the HR & CE Department were aggrieved by the above scandalous statements made by the petitioner in the meeting and most of them came to know of it when it was published in the newspapers or when it was shared in the social media.

The Madras High Court while refusing to quash the FIR, held, “he source of information for the scandalous remarks made by the petitioner are the newspapers which published it the very next day. The petitioner never made any statement disowning the allegation that was published in the newspaper or proceeded further against the newspaper, if really the petitioner did not make any such statement. In view of the same, the petitioner cannot be allowed to wriggle out of what he said on 17.09.2018 in the public meeting and the petitioner being an important political functionary is regularly followed by the media and whatever he speaks gets published in the newspaper. Hence, the petitioner cannot be permitted to question the source of information in this case.”

Cause Title: H. Raja v. State Rep. By Inspector Of Police and Anr. (Diary No. 20577/2024)