CHENNAI: A Chennai special court for cases against MPs and MLAs on Monday convicted and sentenced BJP leader H Raja to six months imprisonment in two separate cases for criminal defamation.
However, special judge J Jayavel suspended the sentence for 30 days as requested by counsel for Raja to move an appeal in the high court.
The issue pertains to cases registered against Raja in 2018 for making derogatory statements against social reformer Periyar, former chief minister M Karunanidhi and Tuticorin MP M Kanimozhi.
The FIRs were registered for offences under sections 500 (criminal defamation), 501 (printing or engraving of defamatory matter), 502 (sale of printed matter containing defamatory matter), 153 (provoking a riot) and 504 (provoking one to break public peace) of the IPC.
In August 2023, the Madras high court dismissed a plea moved by Raja seeking to quash a batch of FIRs filed for criminal defamation including these two cases.
Passing the order, the special court pointed out that in the plea moved before the HC, the accused took a stand that he expressed his opinion about the social reformer who was an atheist. But he took a different view before the trial court that the message was not posted by him in his social media account.
“In a country like India, where police functions and crime detentions have not reached high advanced level to that of the modern, western countries and when police are acting with very limited knowledge and performing numerous work everyday, it cannot be expected that they should examine the owners or CEOs of social media platforms in each and every case…,” the judge said.
The accused had taken a view before the HC that the posts could not be construed as hate speeches and, therefore, he had not denied that the post was not posted by him, the court added.