‘Magistrate appears to have forwarded the complaint mechanically without applying his mind’
The Madras High Court on Thursday quashed an FIR registered against actor Suriya and ‘Jai Bhim’ director T.J. Gnanavel at the Velachery police station in Chennai for having allegedly intended to outrage the feelings of the Vanniyar community by portraying it in a bad light in the film, which was released on an OTT platform.
Justice N. Sathish Kumar allowed a joint petition filed by the actor and the director to quash the FIR, which was filed on May 17 at the instance of Chennai-based advocate K. Santhosh, of Rudra Vanniyar Sena. The judge observed that no one forced the complainant to be a captive audience, and that he was free not to watch the movie if he was aggrieved over its making. Observing that courts would generally interfere with an FIR only in extraordinary circumstances, the judge said the one booked in the present case was completely fallacious, since the provision of Section 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of IPC was not attracted at all.
