The Madurai bench of Madras High Court on Tuesday, August 31 refused to quash the case filed in connection with the actor and BJP leader S Ve Shekar for sharing an abusive Facebook post about women journalists in April 2018. The court adjourned the case for a week.

A case against the actor and politician S Ve Shekar came before Justice J Nisha Banu of Madurai High Court on Tuesday. The counsel of the petitioner said that the 2018 post was shared by the politician Shekar without reading it and that he regrets the act.

However, the Justice questioned why the post was forwarded before reading it. “Will apologising after doing the act rectify the issue?” the judge questioned. Further, when the counsel requested the case to be dismissed, Justice Nisha Banu refused and adjourned the case for one week.

In April 2018, following the Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit patting the cheek of a woman journalist and subsequently apologising for it, the BJP leader S Ve Shekar shared a post on Facebook on April 19, 2018.

The post, which was derogatory to women journalists and abusive in nature, caused major public outrage. Following this, the politician released a public apology.

In his statement in 2018, Shekar wrote, “The post was forwarded from Thirumalai Sa and I forwarded it without reading it. I do not endorse the views of the post. I come from a family that respects women and women journalists.”

Meanwhile, after the politician received much outrage, the Chennai Cyber Crime Wing registered a case against different sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and a case on Section 4 of Tamil Nadu prohibition of women harassment act.

It is to be noted that in May 2018, the Madras High Court also stated in regards to this case that, “forwarding a message is considered as accepting or endorsing the message.”