The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday (December 14) quashed the FIRs registered against YouTuber Maridhas who was arrested by the Tamil Nadu police for a tweet that came in the light of the late Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat.
Maridhas had posted a tweet in Tamil in which he said “Is Tamil Nadu turning into another Kashmir under DMK rule?” which was subsequently deleted.
He was arrested based on a complaint by a DMK functionary named Balakrishnan and was booked under Section 124 A (sedition), 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the IPC. Sections 505 (ii) and 505 (i)(b) of the IPC were also slapped against him.
Justice G R Swaminathan who heard the matter passed the order stating that none of the offences mentioned in the FIR have been made out in the case.
The BJP Tamil Nadu had extended full support to Maridhas and was instrumental in securing his release. In a tweet, the BJP Tamil Nadu head K. Annamalai had welcomed the judgement and assured that the party would stand with all nationalist voices in the state.
The sedition case filed by Madurai police against Shri. Maridas is quashed by Madurai High Court today@BJP4TamilNadu welcomes this judgment of the Hon court & will continue to fight for all the nationalist voices when it’s suppressed
Hope @arivalayam govt learnt it’s lesson!
— K.Annamalai (@annamalai_k) December 14, 2021
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