Madras High Court refuses to quash FIR booked against political commentator Ponraj
The Madras High Court, on Friday (July 17, 2026),refused to quash a First Information Report (FIR) registered against political commentator V. Ponraj (60), for having
The Madras High Court, on Friday (July 17, 2026),refused to quash a First Information Report (FIR) registered against political commentator V. Ponraj (60), for having made derogatory remarks against women followers of the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party in an YouTube interview. Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan dismissed a petition field by the political commentator to quash the FIR booked on the basis of a complaint lodged by Minister for Energy Resources and Law R. Nirmalkumar before he assumed charge as a Minister and during the course of election campaign.
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, the YouTube interview given by Mr. Ponraj and found it to be highly derogatory. Thereafter, the cyber crime wing of Chennai Central Crime Branch police registered the FIR on May 12 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.
The FIR was booked against the petitioner as well as the YouTube channel. However, claiming that the YouTube video concerned was deleted before the registration of the FIR, the petitioner said, 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.” Ponraj further said: “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.”
The BriefWire