Madras HC stays proceedings against 8 actors in defamation case

Chennai: Madras high court has stayed all further proceedings against eight actors including Surya and Sarathkumar pending before  judicial magistrate, Udhagamandalam in connection with a defamation case.

Justice M.V. Muralidharan granted interim stay till the disposal of the criminal original petition filed by the actors. The issue pertains to a complaint filed by journalist Rozario Maria Soosai of Udhagamandalam against actors—Surya, Sarathkumar, Sathyaraj, Vivek, Arun Vijay, Sri Priya, Cheran and Vijay Kumar for allegedly making statements degrading the reputation of a leading Tamil news daily and a journalist attached to it on October 7, 2009, angered by reports that prostitution was rife in Kollywood. Aggrieved by the statements of the actors, Rozario filed a criminal defamation complaint against the eight actors.

Non-bailable warrants were issued against them since they failed to appear before the Judicial Magistrate on May 15, 2017. They approached Madras HC by filing a criminal restoration petition. Justice S. Vimala had on May 25 passed an interim direction to keep the execution of the warrants in abeyance till further orders. In his current order, Justice Muralidharan said common affidavit was filed in which the petitioner have stated that on March 14, 2017, the criminal original petition was dismissed for default due to non-appearance of the petitioner as well as his counsel. Therefore, he filed a petition for restoration of the criminal original petition.

The main criminal original petition was taken up for hearing and the same was argued by the counsel for the petitioner and there was no representation for respondent even though his name was printed in the cause list. The matter was posted to July 5.