Jaya TV stops telecast of 'morphed' video of DMK candidate

Chennai, May 11: The Madras High Court today dismissed a suit filed by a former DMK minister and a candidate in the May 16 assembly polls in Tamil Nadu seeking to restrain Jaya TV from telecasting a 'morphed' video purportedly showing him in a compromising position with a woman as the channel informed the court that it had already stopped the telecast.

Justice M V Muralidharan recorded a memo filed by Jaya TV Network that the telecast had been stopped immediately on receipt of a notice from the Election Commission on May 9 and ruled that since the defendant had stopped telecasting the news nothing survives in the suit for adjudication by the court.

Petitioner R Periakaruppan, a former state minister who is contesting the polls from Tirupattur constituency, filed the suit seeking to restrain Jaya TV and demanding Rs.26 lakh as damages for telecasting the 'highly defamatory, false news report of alleging immoral conduct on his part together with digitally morphed video graph contents.'

He contended the video allegedly depicting him in a compromising position with an unknown woman was telecast to bring disrepute to him with an ulterior motive of shattering his prospects in the coming elections and tarnish his image and it was a clear violation of the model code of conduct.

PTI