The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) on Thursday criticised observations made by the Madras High Court that Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin’s remarks on Sanatana Dharma amounted to “hate speech”.
“The personal beliefs or ideology of a judge should not find a place in a judgment,” DMK leader Saravanan Annadurai said, adding that the ruling violated a cardinal principle of jurisprudence. “Audi alteram partem — no one should be condemned unheard,” he added.
Annadurai was responding to a social media post by Union Minister Piyush Goyal, who described the High Court’s observation as “a strong rebuke to the DMK’s narrow, anti-Hindu mindset”.
Rejecting allegations that the DMK is an “anti-Hindu” party, Annadurai said the claim was unfounded. He argued that the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) and the DMK had not acted against Hinduism over the past 100 years.
“There is nothing further from the truth than this assertion in the judgment. The DMK is the party that ensured 69 per cent reservation for Hindus. How can that be against Hinduism? This can be seen as anti-Hindu only if one opposes reservation. And reservation cannot be opposed, as it is guaranteed by the Constitution,” he said.
On Tuesday, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court observed that Udhayanidhi’s 2023 remarks on Sanatana Dharma amounted to “hate speech”. The court made the observation while quashing an FIR filed by the Tiruchi city police against BJP leader Amit Malviya, who had been accused of distorting the minister’s comments.
Justice S. Sreemathy, while delivering the judgment, noted that Udhayanidhi had said Sanatana Dharma should not merely be opposed but should be “abolished or eradicated”. The judge pointed out that the Tamil expression used by the minister was not Sanatana ethirppu (opposition to Sanatana) but Sanatana ozhippu (eradication of Sanatana).
