In a relief to actor Kamal Haasan, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday stayed summons issued to him by a trial court in Tamil Nadu over his remarks on the epic Mahabharata.
The judge said the case will be taken up for hearing one month later, after vacation.
This comes a day after the actor filed a petition in the Madras High Court for quashing a complaint in a lower court seeking his prosecution for allegedly making insulting remarks against Hindu epic Mahabharata.
On March 16, members of the Hindu Makkal Katchi (HMK) had lodged a police complaint against Kamal, where they had taken objection to his remarks during an interview with editor Karthigaichelvan of Tamil channel Puthiya Thalamurai, when he said India honours such a book ‘where a woman is gambled away’.
Even on Wednesday, the actor had refused to go back on his statement saying, “India is a secular, democratic and pluralistic society.”
“This cannot be construed as a deliberate wounding of the religious feelings of the complainant. There have been several critical works on the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. Dr. Ambedkar, the father of the Indian Constitution, has written a book ‘Riddles in Hinduism.’ The great poet and translator A.K. Ramanujan has written an essay ‘300 Ramayanas’.”
“These are all scholarly responses. If they would give rise to criminal prosecution, there can be no genuine conversation on any of these aspects. The impugned complaint deserves to be quashed not only to prevent an abuse of process but also to secure the ends of justice... The learned trial Magistrate has mechanically issued summons in the present case,” the actor was quoted as saying by The Hindu.
Following the police complaint by HMK, a resident of Radhapuram Taluk of Tirunelveli district, V Aadhinatha Sundaram (37) had filed a private complaint against the actor in a Tirunelveli court following which the court issued summons to him on April 21.
The magisterial court of Valliyoor in Tirunelveli district then directed Haasan to appear before it on May 5.