Chennai: A special MP/MLA court here Monday convicted and sentenced BJP leader H. Raja to six months’ imprisonment each in two separate criminal defamation cases. The cases stem from Raja’s remarks on social reformer E.V. Ramasamy ‘Periyar’, former Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi and DMK’s Thoothukkudi MP Kanimozhi.
The court of Assistant Sessions Judge J. Jayavel, however, suspended the sentence for 30 days, which would allow Raja to appeal the conviction.
The two cases against 67-year-old Raja, former BJP MLA from Karaikudi (2001-2006), were filed on complaints lodged in Erode Town police station in 2018 by DMK’s P. Selvaraj and the political outfit Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam.
The first complaint pertained to a post by Raja on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) insinuating that Kanimozhi was an ‘illegitimate’ child of DMK patriarch Karunanidhi, who died in August 2018. Kanimozhi is Karunanidhi’s daughter with his third wife, Rajathi Ammal.
“Remarks made by the accused are highly provocative in nature and it is needless to state that such irresponsible comments would invite trouble and provoke violence and thereby cause disturbance to the public peace and tranquillity since several followers and political party leaders are following the ideologies of this political leader,” read the court order.
In another post on ‘X’ in 2018, Raja had called for removal of statues of Periyar from across Tamil Nadu, citing the treatment meted out to statues of communist ideologue Vladimir Lenin after the BJP ended the Left’s uninterrupted 25-year rule in Tripura in 2018.
Noting that the ‘Dravidian’ ideology propagated by Periyar contributed to social reform, the special MP/MLA court stated in its order that an ideology should be opposed by another ideology, not by force or provocation.
“The court has no hesitation to hold that the message as shown in the social media is highly condemnable and it’s highly provocative in nature,” it said, adding that “such type of venomous messages can’t be accepted” in a society governed by rule of law.
The court also slapped a fine of Rs 5,000 on Raja.
The BJP leader had approached Madras HC twice, in August 2023 and April 2024, seeking directions to quash the cases against him. But the high court dismissed his plea on both occasions. He then approached the Supreme Court in May this year. While dismissing his plea, the bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and Prashant Kumar Mishra had remarked that politicians should be more careful about their utterances in public.
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