Madras HC lets DMK sue two ministers in ₹1-crore defamation case over Veeramani remarks

The Madras High Court on Monday allowed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to sue two ministers of the Tamil Nadu government for defamation, in the latest round of a courtroom feud running parallel to a child sexual abuse investigation. Justice K. Govindarajan Thilakavadi granted the DMK's application seeking leave of the court to sue Sports Minister Aadhav Arjuna and Minister CTR Nirmal Kumar, the IT wing of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, and three of the world's largest technology companies. At the centre of the dispute is the POCSO case against granite baron R. Veeramani, which an all-woman Special Investigation Team is probing. According to the DMK's application, on September 21, Nirmal Kumar accused the DMK of inaction in the case; on the same day, Arjuna told a press meet that during the DMK's tenure the police force stood "compromised", applying different laws to protect favoured industrialists, party members and what he called the then ruling family. The party argued that the ministers, holding responsible public office, made the statements with the sole intention of defaming the party, knowing them to be false, and that the TVK IT wing had publicised and circulated the remarks. The DMK also sought leave to sue Google LLC, which operates YouTube, Meta Platforms, which operates Instagram, and X Corp, over the circulation of the statements. The court had reserved orders on the application on October 1. There is an irony the court cannot legislate away. Arjuna himself is before the same court with his own ₹1-crore defamation suit against DMK president M.K. Stalin, over a DMK IT Wing post of June 8 that linked the minister to one John Britto, described as the mastermind of a ₹258-crore drug trafficking case in Chennai and Ramanathapuram. Arjuna called the post "wholly false, fabricated, malicious". Stalin, in a counter-affidavit, denied instructing or approving the post and argued that a party president cannot be held vicariously liable for every post by the party's wings. That suit comes up on October 26. So the ledger stands: one minister suing the opposition leader for ₹1 crore, the opposition suing two ministers for ₹1 crore, and three American technology giants dragged into a Chennai courtroom — while the Veeramani POCSO case, the matter that supposedly started it all, awaits its investigators. A government that promised to change the grammar of Tamil Nadu politics is fluent, it turns out, in the oldest language of all: litigation.