Vanniyar Sangam, the parent body of the Tamil Nadu-based political party PMK, an ally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), has taken legal action against the makers of the Tamil-language film Jai Bhim, alleging that it portrays the Vanniyar community in bad light.

Vanniyar Sangam’s president T Arulmozhi has filed a private complaint before the second judicial magistrate in Tamil Nadu’s Chidambaram district against the film’s main actor Suriya, who jointly produced the movie along with his wife Jyothika under the banner 2D Entertainment. The complaint also names director TJ Gnanavel and OTT platform Amazon Prime Video, which released the legal drama earlier this month.

In the complaint, Arulmozhi urges the court to proceed against the accused for airing offensive scenes and also to punish them under sections 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (1) (promoting enmity between different groups), 499 (defamation), 500 (punishment for defamation), 503 (criminal intimidation), 504 (intentional insult with intent to breach peace) and 505 (statements conducing public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code.

The organisation had earlier sent a legal notice to the makers of the film, claiming that the Vanniyar community was wrongly portrayed in the movie.

The case was eventually filed after Jai Bhim’s makers didn’t tender an unconditional apology as demanded by Vanniyar Sangam.

“The accused persons’ reckless depiction of the Vanniyar community in poor light, with villainous and criminal bent of mind, has delivered an irreparable dent to the hitherto earned high reputation of the community with one deadly blow… [with the] accused film wiping out all goodwill the Vanniyar community has enjoyed so far from all other communities,” the petition filed on Tuesday said.

“Accused persons have created communal issues, criminal intimidation between the people, and also provoke breach of peace by inciting violence among the people in the state of Tamil Nadu,” the petition said.

The petition also says that a Chidambaram police station had refused to register a complaint filed on the same issue earlier, after which a complaint was filed in Cuddalore. But no action was taken.

The film Jai Bhim fictionalises a real-life case of a tribal man, Rajakannu, who was falsely implicated in a theft case and died in custody following police torture in 1993. The film narrates how his wife and retired high court justice K Chandru fought for justice.

The case Rajakannu vs. State of Tamil Nadu eventually resulted in three policemen being sentenced to 14 years of rigorous imprisonment for Rajakannu’s death.

Among the multiple issues raised, the petition argues that the movie retains the real names of all the characters but changed the name of the sub-inspector who had tortured the victim in police custody from his real name Anthonysamy to Gurumurthy.

The petition claims he was “repeatedly referred to as guru”, which could seemingly be a reference to the community’s late leader J Guru.

“The accused have projected the said wicked person, a wrongdoer, as if he belonged to the Vanniyar community, thereby imputing that the members of the Vanniyar community are prone to commit wrong and illegal things, while in real life, the said sub-inspector did not belong to the Vanniyar community,” the petition says.

The complainant argues that freedom of expression cannot be used to defame a particular community and earn substantial revenue by “distorting facts”.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the LatestLaws staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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