The Madras High Court on Thursday, February 1, 2024, reserved its judgement on a plea by K. Annamalai, president of the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit, to quash a criminal case filed against him for claiming that it was a Christian missionary NGO that had first filed a case before the Supreme Court seeking a ban on the bursting of crackers during Deepavali.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh deferred his verdict after hearing elaborate arguments advanced by the petitioner’s counsel Shyam Sundar, and the complainant’s advocate V. Suresh, for quite a few hours on Wednesday (January 31) and Thursday. Well known environmental activist V. Piyush of Salem had filed the complaint accusing Mr. Annamalai of having made a false claim.
According to the complainant, the false claim was made in an interview given by the BJP State president to a YouTube channel on October 22, 2022 just two days before the Deepavali festival that year. Mr. Piyush said that the interview’s shorter version, running to 6.5 minutes, was also circulated widely on social media through the political party’s X handle.
