On Thursday, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, MK Stalin directed the withdrawal of 90 defamation cases against journalist, dailies and television channel.
The defamation cases against the editors, printers and publishers of newspaper were lodged between 2012 and February 2021. At that time, AIADMK ruled in the southern state.
As per reports, in between the year 2011 and 2016, Tamil Nadu government initiated nearly 213 defamation lawsuit against those individuals who criticized the former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
The list of 213 defamation lawsuit were presented before the Supreme Court by the Tamil Nadu government in 2016 when the court asked about the defamation cases filed by the then AIADMK government.
In 2019, Edappadi K Palaniswami who was the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu sued Samuel Mathew, former Tehelka Managing Editor along with six others for publishing a video clip linking EPS to the Kodanad robbery that took place in 2017.
Reportedly, the former Chief Minister too asked for around Rs 1.10 crore on the ground of the damages.
As reported by ‘NDTV’, the English dailies namely The Times of India, The Hindu, The Economic Times, Tamil newspaper Dinamalar, DMK organ Murasoli, Dinakaran together with Tamil Magazines like Ananda Vikatan, Junior Vikatan and Nakkeran confronted such cases.
On the other hand, among the television channel Puthiya Thalaimura, New 7, Kalaignar Tholaikatchi, Sathiyam, Captain, NDTV and Times Now faced similar cases.
