Conduct oratory contest without affecting sovereignty, HC tells pvt college

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court had granted permission to a private organisation to conduct an oratory competition to mark LTTE chief V Prabhakaran’s 68th birth anniversary at a private college in Chennai.

Justice G Chandrasekharan passed the order while disposing a petition filed by director Pugazhenthi Thangaraj. The petitioner wanted the Inspector at Koyambedu Police Station to revoke 3 conditions imposed for conducting the competition.

According to Thangaraj, while the police imposed 10 conditions, he was aggrieved with only 3 of them. “Speech shall not eulogise the banned outfit, or its leaders either directly or indirectly and should not be against the sovereignty of the nation. Competition time should not exceed 3 hours from 10 am to 1 om on December 23, 2022. Petitioner should video-graph the entire programme and submit it to the police. These conditions are inappropriate,” the petitioner’s counsel argued.

Recording the submissions, the judge held that as per the ruling of the Supreme Court, mere support to a banned organisation will not by itself become an offense and set aside the first condition. The judge also granted 8 hours to conduct the programme. It noted that the police shall make its own arrangement for video graphing the competition.

The HC made it clear that “speech shall not be against the sovereignty of the nation, should not affect the sovereignty of the friendly relations of SAARC nations”.