High Court ‘resurrects’ author Perumal Murugan

CHENNAI: Over a year after a controversy over Perumal Murugan’s book ‘ Madhorubagan’, the Madras High Court on Tuesday ruled in favour of the author. “Let the author be resurrected to what he is best at. Write,” said the court. Murugan had announced through social media in January 2015 that “The author Perumal Murugan is dead”.

The first bench of chief justice SK Kaul and justice Puspha Sathyanarayana, delivering its verdict in a case challenging decisions against the author taken in a ‘peace committee meeting’ organised by Namakkal district officials early last year, issued instructions to the Tamil Nadu government to constitute “an expert body to deal with situations arising from such conflicts of views, such expert body to consist of qualified persons in the branch of creative literature and art so that an independent opinion is forthcoming, keeping in mind the law evolved by the judiciary.”

The judgement relieved the author of the various undertakings he had given to Namakkal district authorities, including deletion of portions from his book and withdrawal of unsold copies from the market.

The high court said: “We are of the view that (the petition filed in solidarity with the author challenging the decisions taken in the peace committee meeting) be allowed and the prayer sought therein granted to the extent that there is no binding force or obligation arising from the so-called settlement arrived at with the intervention of the state authorities.”