The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court delivered a landmark decision Tuesday, quashing the FIR against BJP’s Amit Malviya lodged by Tiruchi police in 2023. The controversy revolved around Malviya’s posts on Tamil Nadu Dy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin’s Sanatan Dharma comments.
Justice S. Srimathi labeled Stalin’s words as hate speech while protecting Malviya’s right to respond. She held that legal pursuit would misuse process and inflict irreversible injury.
Contextualizing the verdict, the court noted persistent anti-Sanatan campaigns by DK and DMK for a century, framing Malviya’s intervention as a valid query into the speech’s subtext.
Invoking IPC provisions on enmity and mischief, complainant K.A.V. Thiyagarajan from DMK Lawyers’ Wing accused Malviya of falsifying Stalin’s speech as a call for Hindu genocide and using Hindi to fracture society.
Post-Malviya, Ayodhya saint Paramhans Acharya offered Rs 10 crore to behead Stalin, which the prosecution cited as proof of hate propagation.
Seeking redress, Malviya petitioned the high court. Justice Srimathi sided with him, dismissing the case. This outcome signals stronger safeguards for political expression in sensitive religious debates.