Supreme Court refuses to entertain plea against Tamil Nadu Speaker M Appavu over defamatory statement

New Delhi [India], December 5 : The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) Babu Murugavel's plea challenging the Madras High Court's decision to quash the defamation complaint against Tamil Nadu Speaker M Appavu.
A bench of justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti declined to entertain the plea filed by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) leader Babu Murugavel.
Murugavel has challenged the Madras High Court's decision that quashed the criminal defamation case he had filed against the Tamil Nadu Speaker M Appavu.
The matter pertains to a speech made by Appavu in November 2023 during a book release event in Chennai, which was claimed by Murugavel to be defamatory in nature.
Appavu, the Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly is also the sitting MLA elected from Radhapuram constituency as a candidate of the DMK party. The Special Court in Chennai had initially taken cognizance of the matter and issued a summons to the speaker.
Murugavel has alleged that Appavu claims that his statement about some AIADMK legislators being ready to join the DMK following the death of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, was defamatory. However, the top court remarked that such statements relating crossing-over of a political person from one party to another cannot be referred defamatory.