A special three-judge bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday reserved its orders on the maintainability of a writ petition filed in 2017 challenging a ban imposed by the State government in 2015 on Tamil book ‘Madurai Veeranin Unmai Varalaru’, besides ordering forfeiture of all copies of the book.
The bench comprising Justices D. Krishnakumar, C.V. Karthikeyan and P. Dhanabal was of the view that the matter could be heard by it only if the author, Kulandai alias Kulandairaj, had filed a petition under Section 96 of the Code of Criminal Procedure challenging the forfeiture order passed under Section 95 of the Code.
However, since the author had chosen to file only a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution, such a case could be heard only by a single judge of the High Court and not by a three-judge bench as required under Section 96 of the Cr.P.C., the judges said and wanted to know whether the petitioner would file a fresh petition.
The petitioner’s counsel feared that the government might raise the ground of limitation if he withdrew the writ petition and filed a fresh petition under Section 96 of the Cr.P.C. since the latter stated that such petition must be filed within two months of the forfeiture order.
The counsel said his client had chosen to file the writ petition in 2017 since the forfeiture order came to his notice only after two years. Thereafter, the matter was heard by many single judges of the High Court until Justice Anita Sumanth referred the matter to the three-judge bench on June 14 this year.
He said mere mention of a wrong provision of law need not be held against his client. However, speaking for the bench, Justice Krishnakumar said his bench would grant liberty to the writ petitioner to file a fresh petition under Section 96 of the Cr.P.C., along with an application to condone the delay.
The State had passed the forfeiture order in 2015 on the ground that the book contained offending remarks regarding Aryan invasion and the practice of Devadasi system, besides accusing former Chief Minister and actor M.G. Ramachandran’s ‘Madurai Veeran’ movie of having twisted history.
According to the author, Madurai Veeran belonged to Arunthathiyar community but married a caste Hindu woman. His book had been published by Aadhi Tamizhar Thozhilalar Peravai and around 2,000 copies of it had been sold.
