Read Time: 04 minutes

Synopsis

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to quash the cases registered against BJP leader H Raja for his remarks against Thanthai Periyar, also known as the father of the Dravidian Movement in Tamil Nadu, former Chief Minister Karunanidhi, DMK MP Kanimozhi, as well as officials of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department and their wives.

A Bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and Prashant Kumar Mishra has expressed its concern over the quality of discourse in politics saying, "People in politics have to be circumspect about what they utter; somehow we are reducing the level of discourse".

Last year, a single judge bench of Justice N Anand Venkatesh of the Madras High Court had refused to entertain three different petitions filed by Raja to quash a total of 11 cases and in all three orders, the judge noted that Raja has "the proclivity to make irresponsible and damaging comments and that is the reason why he gets into trouble".

Regarding the three cases against Raja for his Tweet dated March 6, 2018, on Thanthai Periyar, the court noted that Raja had addressed Periyar, who is virtually seen as a Demi-God in Tamil Nadu, a caste fanatic. 

Court highlighted that in his tweet Raja had stated that all the statues of Periyar must be broken, like how the statue of Lenin was broken at Tripura.

Earlier this month too, the High Court again said "no" to Raja's plea to quash the FIR against him.

When Raja had approached the high court last year, the high Court while dismissing his plea had directed the Special Court for MP/MLA Cases, to complete the proceedings, within a period of three months.

Since the trial is still ongoing, Raja filed the present petition to quash the complaint taken cognizance by the trial court for the offence under Sections 153, 504 and 509 of IPC.

The bench of Justice G Jayachandran noted that the present petition was purely on factual aspects or the grounds, which were already canvassed in the earlier quash petition.

Case Title: H Raja vs. State Represented by Inspector of Police and Anr.