Justice Kirubakaran, of the Madras High Court, came down heavily on the Tamil Nadu Police on Tuesday.
He asked the police about the action taken against people who were criticising Indira Banerjee, the Chief Justice (CJ) of the Madras High Court.
Referring to the multiple personal attacks on the CJ on social media for her verdict on the 18 AIADMK MLAs disqualification case, he said that a judgement can be criticised but personal attacks on a judge are unwarranted.
He also asked why the cyber crime police did not take suo motu cognisance and take appropriate action on such people.
“If such comments were posted against the Chief Minister or any other ministers, you would have taken suo motu action to arrest the person who made that comment. But tell us what you have done against the people who post derogatory comments about the Chief Justice,” he asked.
Directing the Tamil Nadu government to reply in two weeks, he said that the case would be next heard on June 25.
A split verdict in the 18 AIADMK MLAs disqualification case was delivered by a bench consisting of CJ Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar of Madras HC on June 14.
The CJ had upheld the disqualification, saying that the Speaker was reasonable in his actions and that she did not find a reason to interfere in his decision.
Meanwhile, Judge M Sundar quashed the disqualification by saying that the Speaker’s decision violated the principles of natural justice and hence is subject to judicial review.
Since the bench delivered a split verdict, it became necessary for a third judge to hear the case. The senior-most judge of the Madras HC Huluvadi G Ramesh was requested to choose the third judge, who would deliver the verdict which would decide the fate of the 18 disqualified MLAs.
Justice S Vimala has been chosen as the judge who would deliver the final verdict in this case.