Madras High Court asks government to form an expert body to handle situations arising from conflict of views in art, and literature

The Madras High Court on Tuesday quashed an FIR against writer Perumal Murugan, who had written a novel Madhorubhagan and freed him from all controversies surrounding his work of fiction. Protests over which had forced him to announce retirement from writing and withdraw the unsold copies of his novel from the market.

Today’s judgment with far reaching implications on the firm guarantee on the freedom of speech and expression has also put the onus on the government to provide protection to such writers and artists and protect their right to speech and expression. It is the government’s duty to maintain law and order and state actors cannot decide what an author will write or not.

As long as a court of law does not rule that the expression transgresses the reasonable restrictions enshrined in the Constitution when guaranteeing the freedom of speech and expression, the rights of artists, writers, actors to express themselves cannot be curtailed, the court said quashing the complaints against Perumal Murugan.

The district administration in Namakkal had organized a peace committee meeting where Murugan had decided to tender an apology and also delete controversial portions from his book and withdraw the unsold copies from the market.

Some residents of Tiruchengode, claimed that his book had defamed them, had approached the High Court with criminal charges against the author.

The legal battle that ensued lasted nearly one year.

On Tuesday, the First Bench of Chief Justice S. K. Kaul and Justice Puspha Sathyanarayana dismissed the residents’ plea that the decisions taken at the peace committee meeting would continue to hold. The court dismissed decisions taken by the meeting and quashed quashed an FIR filed against the writer.

The court also suggested to the government to constitute a high level expert body to deal with situation arising from such conflict of views and that the expert body to contain qualified persons in the branch of creative literature and art so that an independent opinion is forthcoming. In such matters, it cannot be left to the police authorities or local administration alone, especially when there is a spurt in such conflicts, the court said,.

The court directed the State government to circulate a series of guidelines framed by the court to handle such situations among the State police and to form an expert committee to handle such issues.