The Madras High Court on Friday, March 25, directed actor and senior BJP functionary S Ve Shekher to appear before the Central Crime Branch (CCB) of Greater Chennai police on April 2, in connection with a case relating to his sharing a derogatory social media post against women journalists.
Justice AD Jagadish Chandira passed the orders on the case relating to the actor sharing the post on his social media post in the wake of former Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit patting on the cheek of a woman scribe after a press conference triggering a controversy. The counsel appearing for Shekher informed the court he had just shared a message originally posted by a man in the US and removed shortly, besides tendering an apology.
However, the prosecution counsel told the court that the actor-politician had not appeared before the investigating agency even once. After listening to both sides, the judge ordered Shekher to appear before the police on April 2 and adjourned the matter by two weeks.
The Madurai bench of Madras High Court in August of last year, 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 subsequently apologized for it, Shekar had shared a post on Facebook, which was derogatory to women journalists and abusive in nature. Following major public outrage, the politician released a public apology.
In his statement in 2018, Shekar 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.” Meanwhile, the Chennai Cyber Crime Wing registered a case against different sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and a case on Section 4 of Tamil Nadu prohibition of women harassment act (penalty for harassment of women).
(With PTI inputs)