The three Hindu Munnani office-bearers, i.e., T Manohar, J Kishore Kumar and VP Jayakumar, who filed a writ of quo warranto petition seeking ministers Udhayanidhi Stalin, Sekar Babu and MP A Raja to explain under what authority they were continuing to hold public office after the comments made by Udhayanidhi and Raja on Sanatana Dharma, filed sub-applications before the Madras High Court, requesting it to order a television and YouTube channel to provide video footage of the events in which the remarks were made.
The petitioners had filed the case in their personal capacity.
According to a report by The Hindu, hearing the case, Justice Anita Sumanth asked Senior Counsel P Wilson, why could the ministers not provide the video footage of the event in order to assist the Court.
Wilson responded by saying that the ministers could not be asked to do so because of the protection under Article 20 (3). Article 20 (3) states, "No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself." He then stated that the petitioners should have approached the Court with evidence.
Further, he added that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its state president K Annamalai were politicising the matter and conducting a parallel trial on social media.
Justice Anita Sumanth stated that she would decide the case only based on arguments made in the Court and not allow politicisation to affect the process.
According to the Court proceedings reported by The New Indian Express, she also stated that Wilson had undertaken to submit the materials during the last hearing and that it was the duty of the Counsel to assist the Court.
Another sub-application was for changing the State Assembly's respondent from the Special Secretary, Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly to Secretary, Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.
She then granted time till 7 November to Advocate General R Shunmugasundaram, Wilson and other counsels representing the ministers and MP to file their counter-affidavits.
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