Madras high court wants to hear from writer Perumal Murugan

CHENNAI: “Our largest concern is extra-judicial groups wielding power to decide what is right and what is not right, and asking authors what to write and what not to write,” said Madras high court when a public interest litigation filed by progressive writers came up for hearing in Tuesday.
The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M M Sundresh made these oral observations when the PIL by Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association president S Tamilselvam was being heard.
The PIL was filed in the aftermath of social ostracism suffered by Tamil author Perumal Murugan in his native town of Thiruchengode and its neighbourhood, after his novel “Mathorubagan” (One Part Woman) was perceived to be offending religious and social sentiments of the locals.
The bench, however, made it clear that it would not go by media reports.
Noting that it would issue notice to the author, so that he could narrate the sequence of events culminating in the meeting and undertaking, the bench imbedded Murugan as party to the case.
On January 12, the Namakkal district administration led by a revenue divisional officer held a 'peace committee' meeting to end local unrest and a bandh. Besides an 'unconditional apology', an 'undertaking' was obtained from Murugan to withdraw all the copies of the book from market, delete the objectionable portions in the book and not to write controversial subject in future.
Assailing the so-called peace meeting and the undertaking obtained from the author under duress and coercion, the PIL wanted it to be quashed and not to be enforced.
The judges also wondered as to how they could pass any order with regard to the undertaking when it was not known whether it had been obtained by force or whether there was any truth in allegations of compulsion.
However, disapproving of the peace committee meeting, the judges said the authorities should have advised the protesting groups to lodge complaints if they were aggrieved by his writings.
The person who wrote the book should be tested only before a court of law, they said, adding the authorities should not play into the hands of extra-judicial groups. These issues should not be determined by such groups of people.
The bench also suggested that instead of limiting its prayer only for quashing or staying Murugan's undertaking, the petitioners should go into larger issue of freedom of expression and the threats it faced, so that the court could pass detailed orders with perspective.