All eyes on Karunanidhi’s court appearance

Karunanidhi’s appearance gains significance even though the Tamil Nadu government has filed more than 190 such defamation suits against almost all opposition leaders and the media in the court. In fact, the Supreme Court, while granting a stay on a batch of defamation cases against DMDK leader Vijayakanth, asked about the preference showed by the AIADMK-led government to file such defamation cases. 

The bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and P C Pant had observed then, “These criticisms are with reference to the conceptual governance of the State and not individualistic. Why should the state file a case against individuals? Defamation case is not meant for this.” For that matter, a debate continues to rage over this issue. 

When the AIADMK chief feels she has been defamed personally, she has to lodge a defamation case in her individual capacity and not through the public prosecutor, some legal experts observed. The present criminal defamation case against Karunanidhi and the magazine Ananta Vikatan pertains to an article published in DMK’s Murasoli. 

The article which cited Ananda Vikatan ’s survey accused the AIADMK government of failing to do enough for the state. Karunanidhi had dubbed the case “as clearly an attempt to threaten publications that don’t support the ruling AIADMK.”

However, the AIADMK circles point out that DMK is no stranger to filing such defamation cases. They claim that during its last stint in power, the party had filed over 50 such cases on behalf of the then chief minister. Jayalalithaa’s first tenure had seen as many as 120 defamation cases. But all of them were withdrawn before her term ended. 

Now, with most of these cases going through the process of adjournments on some pretext or the other, the fate of these cases reaching a logical end is anybody’s guess, especially with the assembly elections round the corner.