Chennai: The Madras High Court has closed contempt proceedings against actor Suriya, having issued a note of caution and no punishment. Suriya had criticised the court’s decision to conduct NEET with a pandemic situation when the judges are hearing cases through video conferencing.
The bench of Bench of Chief Justice AP Sahi and Justice Senthil Ramamoorthy said in its order today:
“…it is not the job of a constitutional Court to use a sledgehammer for avoidance of something which can be perceived to be not capable of even being propped up as a contempt.”
While observing that the comments made by Suriya were unnecessary and unwarranted. The bench also said that it does not want to take the issue further.
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The bench said:
“… we find that the utterances by the cine actor may have been absolutely unnecessary or even unwarranted, for being ignorant of the manner in which the entire judiciary of this State has served the interest of its citizens during this pandemic, and any such statement could have been avoided in a much more sober way, instead of an accusing tone, which though trivial in nature has raised a storm in a teacup. A person in public life enjoys a position because of the responsibility with which he conducts himself and not by making other human activities look small for perceptibly no valid reason, but we would not say anything further, as we find that the NEET Examinations and the dispute around it was not even a subject matter of the Courts in the State of Tamil Nadu. A self-righteous person should himself be humble enough to acknowledge the contribution of others.”
-India Legal Bureau