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The Madras High Court on Monday, September 8, stayed a single judge’s order directing Tamil bi-weekly magazine Junior Vikatan to pay Rs 25 lakh in compensation to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP TR Baalu in a defamation case. The Division Bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and C Saravanan passed the interim order after Junior Vikatan appealed against the February 4, 2025 ruling by Justice AA Nakkiran, who held the magazine guilty of defaming the senior DMK leader.
Baalu filed the defamation suit in 2014 over two Junior Vikatan articles – one published on March 28, 2012, and another on December 22, 2013. The court dismissed the claim relating to the 2012 article as time-barred but ruled that the 2013 article was defamatory.
The December 2013 piece attributed certain remarks to Baalu during a DMK general body meeting, claiming he mocked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as a “small boy” and questioned his leadership. However, witnesses, including DMK functionary C Dasarathan, testified that Baalu made no such comments. During cross-examination, Junior Vikatan’s own witness admitted the article had not been verified before publication.
In his February 2025 ruling, Justice Nakkiran held that the article was published “without proper verification or confirming the veracity of the news and with a calculated intention of defaming the plaintiff.” The court awarded Baalu Rs 25 lakh in damages, reducing the amount from the Rs 1 crore he had sought, and also rejected his plea for a permanent injunction against the magazine.
Following this, Editor R Kannan, Publisher K Ashokan, and Printer S Madhavan of Vasan Publications Pvt Ltd challenged the single judge’s order before the Division Bench, which has now stayed the ruling.