'Politicians Must Be Circumspect About Utterances' : Supreme Court Refuses To Quash Cases Against BJP's H Raja For Comments On Periyar, Karunanidhi

The Bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and Prashant Kumar Mishra was hearing an SLP against the Madras High Court's order. Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu appeared for the petitioner.

During the hearing, the bench orally commented about the need for politicians to be circumspect about their public comments. "People in politics have to be circumspect about what they utter; somehow we are reducing the level of discourse," Justice Roy said,

The High Court had refused to quash the criminal cases under Section 153 (Wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), Section 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and Section 509 (Word gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) against Raja. The trial of these offences is being conducted by the Additional Special Court for Trial of Criminal Cases relating to MP/MLA's.

Prior to the commencement of trial, the present petitioner had approached the High Court in the year 2023 for the quashing of FIRs. However, the High Court had refused to grant any relief observing that that Raja had a habit of making such irresponsible and damaging comments.

“This Court must necessarily take judicial notice of the fact that the petitioner has the proclivity to make irresponsible and damaging comments and that is the reason why he gets into trouble. This Court is reminded of the sagacious words of Thiruvalluvar. To put it in simple English- Whatever besides you leave unguarded, guard your tongue; otherwise errors of speech and the consequent misery will ensue. This warning given by Thiruvalluvar perfectly applies to the petitioner,” the court had observed.

Raja had also made tweets against EV Ramasamy, known as Periyar, saying that the Atheist leaders statues should be broken and also addressing Periyar as a caste fanatic. The court noted that though every person was entitled to differ from views, thoughts and ideologies of Periyar, he could not cross the “Lakshman Rekha”.

Observing that the statements made by Raja will provoke the class of persons who follow Periyarism, and had the propensity to result in violence and disturbance to public order, the court said that the facts constituted an offence and refused to quash the same.

"This statement made by the petitioner clearly has crossed the limits and it is prima facie capable of causing disturbance to the public order. The tweet certainly hovers around hate speech.."

The court had also observed that Raja's remarks against the officers of the HR&CE department were highly defamatory, scandalous, and was in the nature of demeaning women.

Noting that the messages tweeted by Raja bordered around hate speech, the court observed that though a person holding a responsible post in a national party can comment upon policies and shortcoming of the opposition party, the comments could not touch upon the personal character/status. The court added that words were more powerful than swords, and whereas the sword would cause injury to an individual, words could create a very serious impact on a large section of people.

Accordingly, the court had dismissed Raja's petition to quash the proceeding and ordered to transfer the case to the Special Court for MP/MLA cases, Erode. Thereafter, the the trial had begun and and this petition to quash was filed again.

“The perusal of the petition to quash is purely on factual aspects or the grounds, which are already canvassed in the earlier quash petition. Hence, this Court finds no merits in this petition.,” the High Court had observed in its last month's order.

Against this backdrop, the present SLP was filed, and the same stands dismissed now. 

Case Title: H. RAJA VS. STATE REP. BY INSPECTOR OF POLICE., DIARY NO. - 20577/2024