Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president M.K. Stalin has filed a civil suit in the Madras High Court demanding damages to the tune of ₹ 1.1 crore from Ananda Vikatan Publications for having published a defamatory article against him in their biweekly Junior Vikatan.
In his plaint, Mr. Stalin said the magazine carried an article on May 8 alleging that ‘Lottery King’ Martin Santiago had paid ₹500 crore to the DMK towards election fund and that was the reason for the recent Income Tax raid on his business premises.
Maintaining that the article was entirely false, malicious, misleading and highly defamatory, he said the publishers carried the article along with his photograph and that of his family members with the sole intention of damaging his reputation.
Stating that he had issued a legal notice to the publishers through senior counsel P. Wilson’s office on May 8, the DMK president said instead of showing remorse and carrying an apology, the publication carried another write-up mocking the legal notice.
Despite quantifying the damage caused to his reputation as ₹100 crore, he restricted the relief to ₹1.1 crore besides seeking a permanent injunction restraining the publishers from reprinting the article or disseminating it through their website.