A bailable arrest warrant has been issued against RK Selvamani, filmmaker and husband of actor-politician Roja, by a Magistrate court in Chennai in relation to a defamation case.
Selvamani has predominantly made films in Tamil, including popular movies such as Captain Prabhakaran (1991) and Makkal Aatchi (1995), among others. His wife Roja is a former actor who worked in Tamil and Telugu cinema. She is now an MLA of the Nagari constituency in Andhra Pradesh.
Aside from Selvamani, a warrant has also been issued by Chennai’s XV Metropolitan Magistrate in George Town against Arul Anbarasu, a former Congress MLA and son of former Congress MP Anbarasu.
The court has summoned Selvamani and Arul to appear before it on April 23 in relation to a defamation case filed against them by a film financier.
On September 5, 2016, Arul and Selvamani had given an interview to the TV channel Puthiya Thalaimurai, during which they allegedly made defamatory comments about film financier Mukarchand Bothra, with regards to the latter lending money to Roja. Claiming that the words used by the duo had affected his reputation and his image, Bothra filed a defamation case against them, as well as the news channel, in 2017.
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The financier had filed his case seeking punishment for the offenders under Sections 499 (Defamation) and 500 (Punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code.
The case against the channel was quashed on February 7, this year.
Bothra died while the case was still pending but his son Gaganchand Bothra continued to pursue it.
Selvamani and Arul failed to appeared before the Magistrate court in relation to this case during the previous hearings, including the most recent one on Monday. Due to this, the court has now issued bailable arrest warrants against the duo and issued summons for them both to appear at the next hearing on April 23.