HC seeks records of Ram case against Karuna

New Delhi, Nov. 22: The Delhi high court on Thursday called for the records of a lower court which had dismissed a lawyer’s complaint against Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi for his alleged remarks on Lord Ram. Justice V B Gupta gave this direction on a petition filed by advocate Monica Arora challenging the lower court’s decision. A metropolitan magistrate here had on October 17 dismissed her criminal complaint saying there was no ground to take cognisance of the offences alleged. The magistrate had also said prior sanction of the state governor was required for initiating prosecution.

But Ms Arora argued that previous sanction was not required since the alleged offence was not committed against the state. “There is no legitimate and lawful reason for seeking prior sanction in private offences where one person has hurt the religious sentiment of the other,” she argued. The advocate also placed before the court some newspaper clippings reporting Mr Karunanidhi’s remarks on Lord Ram, which evoked protests across the country and cases against the chief minister, which were filed in various courts.

A few days ago, a Mumbai court had issued summons to Mr Karunanidhi on a complaint filed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) for his remarks on Lord Ram. Magistrate A.G. Mohabe of the 26th metropolitan court in suburban Borivali had asked Mr. Karunanidhi to appear before it on December 11. The complaint was filed by VHP’s Mumbai unit general secretary Arun Handa, who accused Mr Karunanidhi of intentionally outraging the religious feeling of the Hindus.

The cases were under IPC sections 153 (promoting enmity between different religious groups) and 295 (intentionally outraging religious feelings). Mr Karunanidhi had made his remarks on Lord Ram after the Sangh Parivar raised objection to the execution of the Sethusamudram Project on the ground that it would destroy the bridge believed to have been constructed by Lord Ram when he undertook his journey to Lanka to rescue Sita from the clutches of Ravana. In response the chief minister wanted to know which engineering college Lord Rama had studied in. He also quoted Valmiki to say that he had even called Lord Ram a drunkard in the Ramayana, a comment that raised a lot of dust.