Ponraj moves Madras High Court seeking to quash FIR against him

V. Ponraj (60), a political commentator, has approached the Madras High Court urging it to quash a First Information Report (FIR) registered against him on the basis of a complaint lodged by Minister for Energy Resources and Law R. Nirmalkumar accusing him of having made derogatory remarks against women followers of the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK).

Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan, on Tuesday (June 16, 2026), adjourned the hearing on the quash plea to Wednesday (June 17). In his plea, the petitioner told the court Mr. Nirmalkumar had lodged the complaint against him much before he assumed office as a Minister. The complaint was initially lodged with the Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu on March 26.

According to the complaint, lodged in his capacity as the joint general secretary of TVK, Mr. Nirmalkumar had come across on March 18 an YouTube interview given by Mr. Ponraj and found it to be highly derogatory against women in general. The cyber crime wing of Chennai Central Crime Branch police registered the FIR, on the basis of the complaint, only on May 12.

The FIR was booked for offences under Sections 79 (uttering words intended at insulting the modesty of a woman) and 296b (uttering obscene words) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act of 2000. It was registered against the petitioner and the YouTube channel.

Claiming the YouTube video concerned was deleted much before the registration of the FIR, the petitioner claimed, it was “a clear case of misuse of political power as a tool of political vendetta and that the de-facto complainant had orchestrated this complaint to silence legitimate political criticism, which is protected as free speech under Article l9(1)(a) of the Constitution.”

The petition further read: “The FIR is an outcome of an online interview and the petitioner was only answering the questions which were posed to him and the telecast (publishing) was done by a private YouTube channel. Hence the FIR is liable to be quashed... With the materials available on record and on reading the FIR, it would be an abuse of process of court to proceed against the petitioner for the alleged offences.”