The Madras high court yesterday (June 16) quashed the trial court proceedings against actor and politician Kamal Haasan for his remarks about portrayal of women in epic Mahabharat, in an interview to a Tamil news channel in 2017. The court said that criticism drawing analogies from the epics or literary works is not uncommon and is part and parcel of a free society.
The Madurai bench of the high court was hearing a petition filed by Kamal in 2017, seeking to quash the proceedings against him before the judicial magistrate court at Valliyoor in Tirunelveli district, based on a complaint by one Aadhinatha Sundaram. When the TV anchor asked a specific question on the increasing violence against women in India, Kamal stated that nothing was surprising about it in a country which reveres Mahabharat that depicts a woman being used as a collateral during gambling.