Kancheepuram, Oct 4 (PTI) A court here has framed charges against columnist S Gurumurthy for writing "defamatory and misleading" articles on the Sankararaman murder case in which Kanchi seer Jayendra Saraswathi is the prime accused.
Judicial Magistrate G Uthamaraj framed the charges yesterday and posted the case for further hearing on November 17.
According to the prosecution, which filed the chargesheet on July 26 last, the articles written by Gurumurthy were defamatory and misleading.
Gurumurthy was questioned by the special investigation team in December 2004 in connection with the articles written by him.
PTI report

This is clearly a case of Judiciary trying to restrict the freedom of expression. Columnist Gurumurthy had written articles critisising and raising doubts against the Tamil Nadu Government's arrest of Seer Sankaracharya of Kanchi Mutt.

The curtailing of free speech rights of Gurumurthy will hardly go noticed or raised by the Press Community since Gurumurthy does not subscribe to the general Leftist slant of the Indian Press Majority.

Compare this with the huge protests, hue and cry over isse of arrest warrant against Mr. Ravi, the editor of 'The Hindu' by the Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker and one can easily notice the differences.

Article 19 of the Indian Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech and expression.