Non-Bailable Arrest Warrant Issued against Suriya and 7 other actors

The industry is going frenzy over the non-bailable arrest warrant issued against actors Suriya, Sathyaraj, Vivek, Vijay Kumar, Arun Vijay, Sri Priya and director Cheran by a magistrate court in Ooty over failure to appear before court in connection with the defamation case of journalists. The case in question was filed as a private complaint (under section 200 of the Criminal procedure code) by one Rozario Mariya Soosai who claims to be a freelance journalist. 

For the uninitiated, the whole fiasco dates back to 2009 when Dinamalar, a leading Tamil daily published photos of few yesteryear leading ladies, claiming that they had resorted to prostitution based on a "revealition" made by TV actress Bhuvaneshwari (who was making headlines at that time for getting caught-in-the-act). Following the report, the then SIFAA (South Indian Film Artistes' Association) condemned the article and the newspaper in a meeting where actress Sri Priya (whose name of one among the defamed) along with Vijay Kumar (his now late wife's name was also defamed), his son Arun Vijay and others mentioned were seen pouring out their emotional outrage. 

Dinamalar issued a formal apology post the incident and the then editor of the newspaper B. Lenin was arrested under Section 4 of the TN women harrasment prevention act (He was bailed the very next day). But the journalist community hit back by filing a complaint against these eight actors seeking their arrest and alleging that the actors who spoke targeted all journalists (instead of just Dinamalar) and that their condemnation speech incited violence. 

Subsequently, summons were ordered to these eight actors to appear before the court on December 19, 2011, to which the actors filed a petition with the Madras High Court seeking the dismissal their personal appearance. Recently, this petition of theirs was quashed and on May 15, 2017 the case was revived again for a hearing. The failure of the 8 actors to appear before the court this time, made judicial magistrate Senthilkumar Rajavel to issue a non-bailable warrant against them.