Sanatana Dharma Row| Madras High Court Concludes Arguments On Pleas Questioning Continuation Of Ministers In Public Office

Justice Anita Sumanth directed the counsels to submit the written submissions within a week.

On Friday, Senior Advocate P Wilson, appearing for Udayanidhi Stalin argued that his statements on Sanatana Dharma had been accepted by the people of Tamil Nadu, who were majorly Hindu. He argued that the people of the State had elected the DMK Government who stood by the ideologies.

Wilson also argued that the petitions were not maintainable as disqualification of MPs and MLAs was the prerogative of the Parliament and the court could not interfere due to separation of powers.

Previously, Udhayanidhi had submitted that he had no intention to belittle or disrespect any religion and that he was only against the religious practices that discriminated against people. The court had asked Udhayanidhi what research he had done to understand 'Sanatana Dharma' before making recent controversial remarks against it.

Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Minister Sekar Babu had submitted that the present pleas were filed only because he had taken steps to recover temple properties that were allegedly encroached by members belonging to the Hindu Munnani.

MP A Raja had argued that the freedom of speech and expression were placed much above the freedom of religion. He had also submitted that the legal mechanism for disqualifying a Member of the Parliament had been exhaustively provided and none of the grounds raised by the petitioners satisfied requirement of a violation of a 'statutory provision' for the issuance of a Writ of Quo Warranto. He added that a mere allegations under Section 295A of IPC could not act as a ground of disqualification.

The petitioners had contended that though the constitution gave a person freedom of speech and expression, the freedom could not be used to speak against someone else's fundamental right to practice and profess a religion.

Case Title: T Manohar v Udhayanidhi Stalin and Another

Case No: WP 29205 of 2023