Udayanidhi Stalin, who is facing a defamation case filed by Tamil Nadu Assembly Deputy Speaker Pollachi V Jayaraman, told the Madras High Court that he will not make any defamatory statement against the latter, the Times of India reported. Udhayanidhi, who is the chief of the DMK youth wing chief, submitted his response to court in the Rs 1 crore defamation case filed by Pollachi Jayaraman for falsely linking him to the Pollachi sexual abuse case in Tamil Nadu during a campaign trail in Trichy last month.
TOI reports that Madras High Court bench of Justice R Pongiappan said that the CBI has not named Jayaraman or any of his family members as an accused in its report, and asked why Udhayanidhi should make such allegations. Udhayanidhi’s counsel then told the court that he concurs, and that his client will not make such allegations. The court then adjourned the hearing to March 1 and asked Udhayanidhi to file a counter-affidavit.
According to The Hindu, the Deputy Speaker had filed a complaint against Udhayanidhi for falsely alleging that on January 7 that he had a connection to the Pollachi sexual abuse case. Jayaraman had called the charges made against him as “false, baseless, misleading and defamatory.”
The Deputy Speaker has sought damages of Rs 1 crore from Udhayanidhi as well as Kalaignar TV for airing Udhayanidhi’s remarks. He has also sought a permanent injunction restraining Udhayanidhi from making such claims again in the future.
The Pollachi case pertains to the shocking complaint filed by a 19-year-old woman in 2019, who had said that four men forcibly removed her clothes in a car and video-graphed the act. The police’s investigation into her complaint had revealed a larger sexual assault and extortion racket in February 2019, leading the police to believe that over 50 women may have been victims of sexual assault by a close network of men. The Pollachi police had registered a case on February 24, 2019, based on the woman’s complaint against four accused who had assaulted her.
Last month, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested three more accused in connection with the case — Arulanatham (34), Heron Paul (29), and Babu (30). Arunathalam was the Pollachi town secretary of AIADMK student wing and was expelled after his arrest.