Chennai: Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa's office has issued a defamatory suit against popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan for running a comprehensive series on the governance of the AIADMK government. Defamation charges were also moved against DMK leader M Karunanidhi and the editor of the paper Murasoli, for authoring and publishing articles against her.
The CM filed a defamation case in the Principal Sessions Court in Chennai against the publication's article titled 'What has Jayalalithaa done so far?' which was part of 'Mantri-Tantri' series, published on November 21. In the complaint, it is stated that the article has defamed the chief minister and maligned her name.
In response, the Vikatan group issued a strongly worded statement declaring that they will continue to speak the truth and maintained that there was nothing new in the series against the AIADMK government. They said they had run similar series during the DMK regime too, called the 'Cabinet Camera', which was apparently packed with blistering attacks on the party's top ministers. While no legal action was taken, the article did see protests for writing about Karunanidhi's elder son Alagiri and his nexus with notorious Madurai gangs. “Problem emerged only when we wrote about her. There were no threats when we ran other stories in the series against AIADMK ministers and their poor governance,” said a senior journalist working with Vikatan group. Besides legal action, Vikatan group’s statement said, there were efforts to stop the distribution of their publication in districts.
However, government sources denied it. “We intervened only when DMK men had purchased some 100,000 copies of Vikatan magazine and distributed it. Police were forced to engage in the matter after DMK men had further printed the Vikatan copies in colour and forced distributors to distribute them along with newspapers in Sivaganga and other areas,” a senior official said. A police officer said they did not block Vikatan site or Facebook page.
