Madras HC laughs at ‘absurd’ case
Kaushik.Kannan@timesgroup.com
Madurai:22.12.2021
A joke is a joke, a Madras high court judge said while quashing an FIR against CPI(ML) functionary Mathivanan for writing in jest on Facebook that he’s “Going for Shooting Practice” when announcing his recent trip to hill station Sirumalai.
“Jug Suraiya, Bachi Karkaria, EP Unny and G Sampath ... if any one of them, or for that matter any satirist or cartoonist, had authored this judgment, the hypothetical author would have added one more fundamental duty—duty to laugh—to the list of fundamental duties mentioned in…Constitution,” wrote Justice GR Swaminathan in his judgment that has now gone viral.
HC says cops failed to see humour in post
He wrote that “Laugh at what? is a serious question. This is because we have holy cows grazing all over from Varanasi to Vadipatti. One dare not poke fun at them…In West Bengal, Tagore is such an iconic figure that Khushwant Singh learnt the lesson at some cost. Coming to my own Tamil Desh, the all-time iconoclast ‘Periyar’ Shri EV Ramasamy is a superholy cow. In today's Kerala, Marx and Lenin are beyond the bounds of criticism or satire. Chhatrapati Shivaji and Veer Savarkar enjoy a similar immunity in Maharashtra. But all over India, there is one ultimate holy cow and that is ‘national security’.” The FIR against Mathivanan was filed after cops mistook his post for an armed training plan. Justice Swaminathan said the police failed to read the fun. He said a case can be made of such posts if the person conceals his identity.
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