CHENNAI, TAMILNADU, 24/04/2025: FOR INDEX, K.Ponmudy, Minister for Forests at a function held in Chennai on Thusday. Photo: VEDHAN M / THE HINDU
| Photo Credit: VEDHAN M
The Madras High Court on Thursday (July 2, 2026) refused to set aside a private complaint lodged by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) councillor in the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), Uma Anandan, against former Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Minister K. Ponmudy for the derogatory comments he made last year against Saivites, Vaishnavites, and women.
Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan dismissed a criminal revision petition filed by the former Minister against the private complaint, lodged for alleged offences under various provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (previously Indian Penal Code), having been taken cognisance of by the III Metropolitan Magistrate’s court at George Town in Chennai early this year.
The Magistrate on February 23, 2026, ordered issuance of summons to the former Minister and hence, he had approached the High Court with the present revision petition in March 2026, claiming that what he spoke during a closed-door meeting was only a recall of certain statements made by another person several years ago, and not from his own imagination.
In her complaint, Ms. Anandan had stated that she came across a YouTube video of the Minister’s speech delivered at an event in Chennai in April 2025. She found it highly distasteful and intended at promoting enmity between different groups of people, besides being prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony.
She said, in the speech delivered during his stint as Forest Minister, Mr. Ponmudy had recalled an incident of a person having likened the pattai (a horizontal symbol displayed by Saivites on their forehead) and tiruman (a vertical symbol sported by Vaishnavites on their forehead) to the description of sexual postures by a sex worker.
As the speech amounted to wounding the religious feelings of the two sects professing Hinduism, besides falling under the definition of hate speech, the complainant initially approached the police. But the police closed her complaint and therefore, she had chosen to approach the Magistrate by way of a private complaint.
Opposing her plea before the Magistrate, the counsel for the former Minister had contended that the complainant had not made out commission of any offence under Sections 196(i)(a) (promoting enmity between different groups), 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), or 302 (uttering words with intent to wound religious feelings) of the BNS, 2023, and hence the complaint was not maintainable.
Published – July 02, 2026 11:33 am IST
