Karunanidhi’s lawyers, the Chennai-based “Raman and Associates,” dashed off a legal notice to Swamy, stating that unless the latter retracted his statement “within 24 hours,” the DMK leader “will be constrained to initiate civil and/or criminal proceedings against you for defamation of character, holding you liable for all costs and consequences.”
This follows Swamy informing a Special CBI Court in Delhi on Saturday, in the course of hearing of his private complaint on the corruption in the allocation of 2G spectrum when DMK’s A Raja was telecom minister, that he would also move an application under Section 319 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) to implicate more persons in his complaint as accused, including Karunanidhi. This was reported in the media. The court had sought a detailed report from the CBI by February 22.
Enraged by the reports, Karunanidhi asked his lawyers to send a legal notice to Swamy at once. A copy of the notice was made available to the media here. Charging the Janata Party leader with having made a “motivated statement” implicating Karunanidhi in the scam, with “personal malice, political rivalry and clamour for cheap publicity,” the notice said Swamy’s statement was false and “made recklessly with an intention to cause serious injury to our client’s image and reputation.”
Karunanidhi made it clear through his lawyers that “he has no involvement whatsoever in the so-called 2G spectrum case, and your attempt to involve his fair name is motivated.” The legal notice also pointed out that Karunanidhi has been in public life for over 70 years now and a member of the Tamil Nadu Legislative for over 50 years.
Only a few days ago did Karunanidhi defend Raja by saying the whole case smacked of “upper caste bias against the continuance of Sudras’ rule,” like the reign of the ‘Asura king’ Mahabali in Kerala was brought to an abrupt end by the ‘Devas.’ Reacting sharply to Karunanidhi's legal notice, Swamy told some television channels that “it is a panic reaction by Karunanidhi. Any statement made in the court is privileged and it is a contempt of court if anyone gets agitated."