SC stays proceedings against Dhoni

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed proceedings in a criminal complaint filed against cricketer and India team captain M S Dhoni in a court of Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh over his depiction as Lord Vishnu in a news magazine.

A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and N V Ramana issued notice to complainant Yerraguntla Shyamsundar seeking his response on the plea by Dhoni to transfer the case to Bengaluru court, which was already hearing a similar private complaint.

The Bengaluru court has taken cognisance of a complaint filed by Jayakumar Hiremath on February 3, for acts intended or purported to have hurt feelings and sentiments of followers of Hindu religion. However, the apex court had on August 17 last stayed the proceedings.

In his petition filed by advocate Liz Mathew, Dhoni submitted he never ever posed as Lord Vishnu for the said magazine and in fact, he was not even aware that his face would be used in any such manner. He said his permission was also not sought by any of the other accused persons, magazine’s editor and publishers.

Dhoni was issued a non-bailable warrant by the Anantpur court on January 7.He said the magazine had in an issue in April, 2013, in a bid to showcase the various brands which he endorsed at that time came out with a printed illustration on the cover page with caption reading as “God of Big Deals: In the game of endorsements, M S Dhoni is Supreme. How did he get there.”

He said he was never even interviewed for the said article. Since the gist of all complaints against him were same and were just attempts to harass him, he said, urging the court to transfer all cases to Bengaluru court as multiple proceedings would be difficult for him to defend and affect his performance as a professional cricketer.