Tamil Nadu School Education Department on Tuesday, September 17 transferred Chief Educational Officer (CEO) S Mars to the Thanjavur library in the wake of a controversial speech made by Mahavishnu recently at Chennai schools.

The Educational Department has appointed Tamil Nadu State Parent-Teacher Association Secretary J Angelo Irudhayasamy, as the in-charge till further orders. Mahavishnu, who drew widespread criticism for his speech at a school blaming “past life sins” for poverty and verbally abusing a teacher with disabilities, was arrested by the Chennai police on September 5.

According to reports, Mahavishnu has been booked under sections 192 [provocation with intent to cause riots], 196 (1) (a) [promoting enmity], 352 [insult], and 353 (2) [spreading false information] of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Section 92 of the Disabilities Act, 2016.

The video of Mahavishnu of Paramporul foundation arguing with the visually-challenged teacher among students in a government school was removed from YouTube following a request from the Chennai city police. 

Mahavishnu, who runs the organisation Paramporul Foundation, had delivered a speech to the students of The Saidapet High School and Ashok Nagar Girls' High School in Chennai on September 5 to commemorate Teachers Day. He had claimed that people are born poor or with disorders because of "what they did in their past lives" and that "you have been given things in this life based on what you did in your past lives." Mahavishnu also went on to blame the British for allegedly "destroying" the Gurukulam system, a system that essentially permitted education on the basis of caste and gender.

Mahavishnu also claimed that there had been shlokas that could cause a rain of fire, cure ailments and even enable a person to fly. “All these were written as scriptures by our ancestors but the British erased them,” he said at his speech. 

When a teacher with disabilities, Shankar, protested against Mahvishnu’s unscientific and regressive claims, the speaker resorted to verbally abusing and humiliating him. The video of Mahavishnu of Paramporul foundation arguing with the teacher among students in a government school was removed from YouTube following a request from the Chennai city police. 

(With inputs from IANS)