'Why Were Plainclothes Officers At His Doorstep At Dawn?' Madras High Court Criticizes Economist Kalaiyarasan's Detention Over Fake Post

Justice N Ramesh noted that the scholar, Kalaiyarasan, was picked up from his home at 5 am in the morning by policemen in plain cloth and was not even shown the complaint or a copy of the FIR based on which he was being arrested.

It may be noted that Kalaiyarasan was picked up by the police in the early hours of October 28, 2026, over an abusive social media post against a TVK MLA. It was later found that the post was made through a fake account, using Kalaiyarasan's photograph. Kalaiyarasan later gave a police complaint to the Director General of Police seeking action against the police involved in the case. The incident drew stark criticism, and the Chief Minister later met him in the Secretariat.

The court noted that though he was released on the same day and the Chief Minister had personally met him at the Secretariat following the incident, it does not answer the question of why plain-clothed police officers had arrived at his door early morning over a social media post and what action had been taken against those officers. The court also remarked that the Chief Minister's personal intervention is not a remedy.

“Nothing about that episode is before me, and I decide nothing about it; I note it for the two lessons it carries. First, the grace shown at the end does not answer the questions the beginning raised: on what verification were plainclothes officers sent to a citizen's doorstep at dawn over a social-media comment, and what action has followed against those who so acted? An apology, however high its source, is not accountability, and a remedy that depends on the Chief Minister's personal intervention is not a remedy at all,” the court said.

The court added that the social standing of Kalaiyarasan secured his release within hours and wondered how a common man, without access to power, would be treated in a similar situation. The court highlighted that the measure of police force is not on how it treats the eminent while the press is watching but on how it treats the unknown when nobody is watching.

“Secondly, that gentleman's eminence secured his release within hours and an audience at the Secretariat; a common citizen with no access to power, taken at dawn on the same mistaken complaint, would have tasted the lock-up, the remand and the long road of a trial before anyone asked whether the account was even his. The measure of a police force is not how it treats the eminent when the press is watching, but how it treats the unknown when nobody is,” the court added.

The court made the remarks in its order granting anticipatory bail to DMK Councillor D Sudha, noting that a preliminary enquiry was necessary in the case, custody interrogation was not necessary, and that the police had already collected the materials.

The court also emphasised that in cases like political speech, the police is expected to have an even hand against the ruling party and the opposition and not use arrest as a means to intimidate the opposition. The court added that the police serve the state, which endures, and not the party in government, which changes.