New Delhi: The Madras high court has quashed an FIR registered by the city police against a YouTuber over a tweet against the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party in the aftermath of the chopper crash which killed Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and 12 others in Tamil Nadu.
Indian Express has reported that the tweet “indirectly attributed motives of conspiracy and separatism” to the DMK. The News Minute has additionally reported that the tweet had alleged that Tamil Nadu is “turning into another Kashmir under DMK rule.”
Photo: Twitter/@MaridhasAnswers
Maridhas also reportedly claimed in the tweet that the Tamil Nadu government is responsible for creating an atmosphere that can “create a group that can do any level of treason against the country.”
“It is possible for any kind of plot to be hatched here,” he claimed.
Though the tweet was deleted eventually, a complaint was filed against the YouTuber, Maridhas, by a DMK functionary. He was subsequently arrested on December 9.
Justice G.R. Swaminathan of the Madurai bench of the high court quashed the FIR saying offences mentioned in the FIR were not made out in the tweet.
Police had registered the case against Maridhas under various sections of IPC including promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence.
The New Indian Express has reported the judge as having said that a YouTuber “commenting on questions of public importance” is entitled to the same rights of freedom of speech and expression as a journalist or member of the media.
The judge cited Turkish Nobel-winning author Orhan Pamuk’s lecture series, The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist to suppose that Maridhas had possibly written the tweets out of a sense of naiveté.
“The naive write spontaneously almost without thinking, not bothering to consider the intellectual and ethical consequences of their words and paying any attention to what others might say,” the judge said.
In the original series, however, Pamuk capitalises on a distinction first made by Friedrich Schiller, not on the basis of a writer’s real world awareness, but on the level of inspiration that drew out the writing.
Maridhas is known for taking a pro-Bharatiya Janata Party stand in his videos. BJP members on the ground had attempted to prevent his arrest and the party’s state leadership was also vocal against it.
திக திமுக ஆதரவாளர்கள் பலரும் இராணுவ தளபதி விபத்தில் மரணத்தைக் கேலி செய்யும் விதமாகப் பதிவுகள் இடுவதும், சிரிப்பதுமாக emoji போடுவதைக் காண முடிகிறது. ஒவ்வொரு முறையும் இதைச் செய்கிறார்கள்.
பிரிவினைவாத சக்திகளுக்கு திமுக சிறந்த தேர்வாக இருந்துவருகிறது என்பது மறுக்க முடியாத உண்மை.
— Maridhas🇮🇳 (@MaridhasAnswers) December 9, 2021
Eight people from across the country had been arrested for social media posts related to the death of CDS Rawat, his wife and eleven other defence personnel in the helicopter crash.