9 March 2024 7:24 AM GMT
The Madras High court has now removed the remarks made about the origin of caste system from its recent judgement in the pleas challenging the continuation of office of Minister Udayanidhi Stalin, Minister Sekar Babu and MP A Raja.
In the judgment uploaded on March 6th, Justice Anita Sumanth had observed as under,
However, in the copy of the judgement that is currently available on the Madras High Court website, the above observations have been removed and instead, it has been observed as under,
The court had also observed that Sanatana Dharma connotes an uplifting, noble, and virtuous code of conduct and thus opined that the divisive meaning that was attributed to Sanatana Dharma by the Ministers/MP was erroneous.
The observations were made on quo warranto pleas filed by office bearers of Hindu Munnani Organisation- T Manohar, Kishore Kumar, and VP Jayakumar in their personal capacity. Though the court held the statements to be perverse and spreading hatred against particular community, it refused to pass quo warranto against the Minister and observed that since there was no conviction in the FIRs against the Ministers and MP, the writ was premature and thus the reliefs sought could not be granted.
The court had noted that the list of enumerated disqualifications under the Representation of People Act was like a Lakshman Rekha and the court was bound to follow it. Thus, noting that the Ministers/MP had not been convicted in the pending criminal proceedings, the court refrained from passing any orders against the office.