The Madras High Court on Monday dismissed a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction to the State government to initiate criminal as well as departmental action against the principal of Loyola College for having allowed “derogatory” exhibits, against Hinduism in general as well as the Prime Minister in particular, to be displayed at an art festival held on the college campus last month.
A Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad refused to entertain the case on the ground that the petitioner Vedha alias Dhamodharan, editor of Microstat, an online source of socio-economic database, had given a representation to the Director General of Police but made the Commissioner of Police, Greater Chennai alone as a party respondent to the PIL petition.
Alternative remedy
They also said that even if the police failed to register a case on the basis of the representation, the petitioner had an effective alternative remedy of approaching the judicial magistrate concerned with a private complaint.
The art exhibition was held on the college campus on January 19 and 20.
When word spread about a few objectionable paintings having been displayed, Kaleeswaran, the coordinator of the Art and Literary unit of Loyola Student Support Service issued an apology for having allowed the campus to be used for displaying the derogative exhibits against a particular religious group and the country’s leadership.
Though the issue soon died down, Mr. Dhamodharan had filed the PIL petition claiming that the exhibits were displayed with an oblique motive to create a clash between two different religious groups.
Further, stating that those exhibits were being circulated widely on the social media, the petitioner said, he suffered “severe depression and hardship” after watching them.