SEPT 13- Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa has filed yet another defamation suit against her bete noire and DMK president M. Karunanidhi. This is the 12th defamation case that she has slammed the octogenarian with, all in a span of two years since she came back to power in May 2011.
This one relates to Karunanidhi writing in his party’s official organ “Murasoli” last month that Jayalalithaa has been using government advertising as the carrot and stick to manage the media.
Others too are facing the heat from Jayalalithaa’s defamation suits. A court in Thanjavur has issued an arrest warrant against the state opposition leader and DMDK president Vijayakanth, in a Jayalalithaa defamation case.
This was after Vijayakanth failed to appear in that particular court. The judge did not buy his plea that he was busy appearing in another court that day in connection with yet another defamation case filed on behalf of the chief minister.
The matinee idol-turned politician has been hopping from courts in one district to the other chasing half a dozen defamation suits that the CM has filed against him, his wife and his bother-in-law.
There has been a deluge of defamation suits every time Jayalaithaa had come to power. Besides against rival politicians, it has also filed over 50 such against newspapers, journals and TV networks over the last two years. Even political satires aired on a couple of national TV networks have been hauled to court for defamation.
But this is nothing new. During her reign from 1991 to 1996 Jayalalithaa’s government had filed over a hundred defamation cases against the media and political leaders, only to withdraw those just before the 1996 polls.
No different was the scene during her next tenure (2001-2006) when her officials toiled to file about 80 defamation cases on her behalf.
INDIA TODAY
