8 actors including Suriya, Sathyaraj, Vivek get non-bailable warrant in 2009 defamation case

A court here has issued non-bailable warrants against eight Tamil actors for failing to appear before it to face a defamation complaint filed by a journalist against them.

Judicial Magistrate Senthil Kumar Rajavelu issued the arrest warrants against the eight actors on May 15 after none of the eight actors appeared in the court.

After issuing the warrants, the court slated the matter for next hearing on June 17.

The eight actors against whom the arrests warrants were issued included Suriya, Sathyaraj and Cheran besides five others.

The defamation complaint against the actors dates back to 2009 when actors Sathyaraj, Suriya, Cheran, Vijayakumar, Sarathkumar, Vivek, Sripriya and Arun Vijayakunmar allegedly made defamatory statements against journalists.

The actors had made the alleged comments while speaking on the coverage by a Tamil newspaper on the arrest of an actress in a sleaze case and other reports following her apprehension.

Following this, a senior correspondent, Rozario Mariya Susai, had filed a private complaint in the court here against the actors in 2010 for allegedly making the defamatory statements against journalists.

As the case came for trial before the magisterial court, the actors moved the Madras High Court seeking a direction to quash the complaint. The actors plea, however, was dismissed by the high court in March, after which proceedings resumed in the magisterial court.

Counsel K Vijayan for journalist Susai told PTI that the arrest warrants against the actors were issued on his submission to the court that despite dismissal of their plea by the high court, they had failed to appear before the court.

"The actors did not appear in the court. Also, they were not represented in the matter. Hence, we had submitted this in the court and had sought issuance of warrants and it was issued," the complainants counsel Vijayan told PTI.