DMK youth wing secretary and Tamil Nadu Minister for Sports and Youth Welfare Udhayanidhi Stalin on Monday told the Madras High Court that he had issued a statement linking AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami with the 2017 Kodanad estate heist-cum-murder case only on the basis of media reports.
In a counter affidavit to an application filed by Mr. Palaniswami to restrain the Minister from making such defamatory allegations, Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin invoked the defence of justification and said, he made the alleged defamatory statements by believing them to be true on account of numerous media reports.
“The role of the applicant and his connection to the Kodanad murder-robbery case has been widely reported, deliberated and discussed in a myriad of news articles and has been part of public discourse. Consequently, it cannot be said that the applicant is not even remotely connected with the case,” the counter read.
