On Thursday, September 2, filmmaker Leena Manimekalai shared a photo on Twitter – an invitation from the St John Fisher College in New York, USA, inviting her to give a lecture based on her film, Maadathy: An Unfairy Tale. However, the tweet Leena wrote accompanying the invite was not one of elation at the opportunity. “Will the honourable courts in India allow me to travel? Or allow the man to use the law and courts to continue harassing me because I outed his predatory behaviour?” she questioned.
Leena’s statement is in reference to the long battle she has been facing after she spoke up during the #MeToo movement in 2018 against Kollywood director Susi Ganesan. Apart from a defamation case that Susi Ganesan filed against Leena for speaking up, he has also filed petitions to have Leena’s passport impounded. An earlier petition by him to the same effect was disposed of by a Saidapet Metropolitan Magistrate court in Chennai in November 2020 after Leena submitted an undertaking that she would inform the court if she was travelling out of the country.
However, on August 27, 2021, the case for impounding Leena’s passport was reopened after a petition filed by Susi Ganesan. TNM has seen a copy of the petition filed by Susi Ganesan to reopen the case, where he alleges that Leena is attempting to flee the country, and so, the petition to impound her passport should be reopened. Earlier, in February 2021, even though the court had previously closed the petition in November, the Chennai Regional Passport Office had sent Leena a show cause notice as to why it should not impound her passport seeing that a “criminal trial” is pending against her under sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) of the Indian Penal Code. Leena had then wanted to go to Canada for a course in film related studies at York University that she was already pursuing. Leena has only a student visa, and still has to go to Toronto to finish the MFA degree, which is an admission award on full scholarship. However, she has been unable to do so.
Will the honorable courts in India allow me to travel?Or allow the man to use the law and courts to continue harass me because I outed his predatory behaviour? Women like me spokeup because we believed #metoo is a global feminist movement and we are not alone. Is my faith right? pic.twitter.com/hHcUFpEBHJ
— Leena Manimekalai (@LeenaManimekali) September 2, 2021
Now, Leena is yet again faced with the hurdle of not being able to travel to earn her livelihood due to a petition to impound her passport being reopened. Speaking to TNM, Leena’s counsel, VS Senthil Kumar, says that Leena will now have to approach the court to intimate it if she wants to travel to New York upon St John Fisher College’s invitation. “However, if the court denies her travel, she will not be able to go,” Senthil says. Further, until this new petition filed by Susi Ganesan on August 27, Leena could have informed the court and travelled. Now, she will have to remain in India in order to appear for the hearings and trial.
What makes Leena’s situation more precarious is that there has been no major headway in the defamation case against her due to the new petitions – such as the one to impound her passport – being filed by Ganesan. “My studies and film screenings are my livelihood. I am unable to pursue that because he is slapping case after case without actually allowing proceedings to go forward in the defamation case,” Leena says. “Speaking up against sexual harassment doesn’t make me a criminal. I hope the Indian courts will protect my basic right to livelihood.”
Senthil says that they will fight the case to impound Leena’s passport arguing that the court has no authority to do so. Further, they will also argue against the reopening of the case, as a previous petition for the same has been disposed of. The counter petition will be filed on September 6, challenging Susi Ganesan’s claims.