‘Sanatana Dharma’ remark: SC exempts Udhayanidhi Stalin from appearing in courts

The Supreme Court on Wednesday exempted Tamil Nadu minister Udhayanidhi Stalin from appearing personally in any case at various courts across multiple states over his alleged remark against ‘Sanatana Dharma’.
“The petitioner (Stalin) may appear through his authorised representative in all courts and be granted exemption from personal appearance,” a bench headed by justice Sanjiv Khanna said as it agreed to consider in November his petition seeking clubbing of multiple cases at one place.
The bench, also comprising justice Sanjay Kumar, further issued notice on an application moved by the petitioner to place on record details of a fresh FIR registered over the same remark made by him in September 2023 at an event organised in Chennai by the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers Artists Association on the topic ‘Eradication of Sanatan’.
Appearing for Stalin, senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and P Wilson told the court that the petitioner faces serious threat to his life and the cases against him are pending in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Maharashtra and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, invoking hate speech provisions.
“If there is one utterance and registration of offence against that one utterance are in different states, we cannot allow them to go on,” the bench said.
The court asked the petitioner’s lawyers to inform them by the next date of hearing about the place where trial in all cases can be conducted. However, the bench added, “You have to go out of Tamil Nadu.”
Stalin had filed a petition earlier under Article 32 of the Constitution, claiming violation of his fundamental rights, and sought clubbing of FIRs. The top court objected to it by stating that the trial had begun, and told the petitioner that the only solution in such cases was to file a petition under Section 406 of the code of criminal procedure (CrPC), which allows the transfer of a criminal case or appeal pending before any court under any high court to another court subordinate to another high court.
Stalin, the son of Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin, is currently the minister for youth welfare and sports development in the state.
At the event attended by him last year, he reportedly said, “There are some things that we have to eradicate and we can’t merely oppose. Mosquitoes, dengue, corona and malaria are things that we cannot oppose, we have to eradicate them. Sanatanam is also like this. Eradication and not opposing Sanatanam has to be our first task.”