The saga of defamation cases by Tamil Nadu government continues. But this time, it is not the Chief Minister Jayalalithaa who has filed the defamation case, instead it is revenue minister R.B Udayakumar who has filed a complaint against The Economic Times for the article, “TN response to flood was slow, says central report”.
On behalf of the revenue minister, the city public prosecutor M L Jegan filed the petition against ET reporter, editor P.V.Karthik Subbaraman and S.Santhanagopal, printer and publisher of The Economic Times.
The article, "TN response to flood was slow, says central report" was published on February 2, 2016. A statement clarifying that the Economic Times article is “totally baseless and false,” was issued by the Chief Secretary on February 4, 2016.
Following the report, the Tamil Nadu government had asked for a clarification from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, which said that no such report exists. The letter from the Ministry also states that it fully disowns the inferences articulated by the reporter of Economic Times.
The Economic Times report had stated that an analysis by the Union Ministry of Earth Science had revealed that flooding in Chennai was caused by "poor drainage systems and overflow of dam water, not only because of excessive rains."