‘Sanatan Dharm’ row: SC turns down pleas seeking action against Udhayanidhi Stalin
New Delhi, Jan 27 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain pleas seeking legal action, including registration of an FIR, against Tamil Nadu Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin over his controversial statements on ‘Sanatan Dharm’.
Speaking at a conference in Chennai in September 2023, the then minister for sports and youth affairs had said, “Sanatana Dharma was against social justice and equality and that it should be ‘eradicated’ like malaria and dengue.”
A bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and P.B. Varale questioned the maintainability of writ petitions filed under Article 32 of the Constitution.
Sending the disclination of the apex court to entertain the plea, senior advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, appearing for B. Jagannath and two other petitioners, sought permission to withdraw the pleas.
Ultimately, the petition was dismissed as withdrawn with the liberty to avail remedies available under the law.
The Supreme Court is also seized of a plea filed by Stalin Jr seeking directions to consolidate various FIRs and complaints lodged against him over his controversial statements.
Agreeing to examine the plea, a bench presided over by Justice Sanjiv Khanna (now CJI) sought responses from various state governments in the matter.
The plea had contended that the DMK leader has been receiving threats to his life and will encounter great difficulty in appearing before different police stations and courts in different regions.
Udhayanidhi Stalin had spoken at a function of Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers on the Sanatan Dharma, saying that it was against social justice. He also said that Sanatan Dharma must be eradicated like mosquitoes, dengue, malaria or corona.
The Tamil Nadu minister for sports and youth affairs had said, “It (Sanatan Dharma) has to be eradicated, rather than opposing it.” Later, he refused to apologise for his remarks and justified himself by stating: “I will say this continuously.”
Earlier, the top court had said that it would not entertain a plea seeking contempt action against Stalin Jr over his controversial statements saying that it would be “impossible” to hear individual cases across the country.
“If we start entertaining contempt, we will be flooded with it. We will not go into individual cases,” it had said.
–IANS
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