The Supreme Court, on Monday, April 1, said that Tamil Nadu Sports Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin cannot claim that he was in a position similar to the media when seeking to club criminal cases filed against him in the case pertaining to his remarks about Sanatan Dharma.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta was hearing a plea filed by Udhayanidhi seeking to club the first information reports (FIR) against him, registered in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka in the Sanatana Dharma row. The bench had earlier expressed displeasure and slammed him for ‘abusing his rights’.
Udhayanidhi, while seeking the court to club the cases against him, referred to the judgements by the top court in cases, including that of journalist Mohammed Zubair and Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami. The court took an exception to this and said that Udhayanidhi cannot claim relief comparing himself to journalists. "After all, you have made the statements voluntarily. And the cases you cited - those were news media people who were working as per diktats of their bosses to get TRPs. You cannot compare yourself to the media," the bench had said, Bar and Bench reported.
Further, the court asked him why he filed a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution (Right to constitutional remedies) instead of Section 406 (power of Supreme Court to transfer cases and appeals) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and directed Udhayanidhi to amend his plea accordingly. The court has listed the matter to be heard in the second week of May.
The remarks under scanner were made by Udhayanidhi, who is also the son of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, in September 2023 during the Sanatanam (Sanatan Dharma) Abolition Conclave organised by the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers Forum. He said, “Sanatanam is like malaria and dengue. It must be eradicated and not merely opposed,” and added that Sanatana Dharma was against the idea of social justice.