The Madras High Court on Thursday, November 17, restrained a senior Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) functionary from making any defamatory tweets or statements against state Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji. Justice CV Karthikeyan granted the injunction while passing interim orders on an application arising out of a civil suit from Senthil Balaji, which besides seeking an order to gag CTR Nirmal Kumar, president of Tamil Nadu BJP IT Wing, also demanded payment of Rs 2 crore towards damages.
Earlier, petitioner's senior advocate P Wilson submitted that Nirmal Kumar was running a smear campaign against Balaji for the past several months by continuously making wild, false and defamatory statements against him due to political reasons. He said that Nirmal Kumar’s comments were meant to tarnish Senthil Balaji’s reputation, and that no material evidence has been disclosed for any of allegations made over the past six months. Among various other accusations, Nirmal Kumar had alleged that Senthil Balaji was involved in illegal sale of liquor above the MRP, with the involvement of revenue department and TASMAC (Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Limited) officials.
"The intention was to defame and tarnish his personal and professional reputation. Kumar was not engaging in any constructive criticism or political opposition but is only defaming through vexatious and slanderous allegations without any basis. No material evidence has been disclosed for his defamation campaign during the last six months. In fact even when a legal notice was issued to cease and desist, instead of giving an explanation/justification for the accusations, Kumar tweeted about the notice too with further false and defamatory statements," Wilson contended.
After observing that a prima facie case is made out, the judge granted the interim injunction.