The Madras High Court on Monday, April 18, expressed its displeasure over the social media post of actor-turned-politician S V Shekher, which according to it reflected vulgarity. When the petitions against his social media post denigrating women journalists came up for further hearing before Justice A D Jagadeesh Chandira today, counsel for one of the petitioners produced screenshots of the retweets and posts on social media made by the BJP politician.
After expressing his displeasure over the issue, the judge orally observed that the actor could not abdicate his responsibility by saying simply he had just retweeted the messages without even reading them. The matter stands adjourned till April 22.
When the matter came up for hearing last week, Shekher had filed an affidavit offering his unconditional apology for posting the messages. However, the court directed him to file separate affidavits on the four cases that had been registered against him by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) of Greater Chennai Police.
In August last year, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court had refused to quash the case against him for sharing an abusive Facebook post about women journalists in April 2018. After Governor Banwarilal Purohit patted the cheek of a woman journalist and later apologised for his action, Shekar had shared a post on Facebook, which was derogatory to women journalists and abusive in nature. Following widespread public outrage, the politician had released a public apology.
In his statement in 2018, Shekher had written, “The post was forwarded from Thirumalai Sa and I forwarded it without reading it. I do not endorse the views of the post. I come from a family that respects women and women journalists.”