The Madras High Court has issued a notice to the Regional Passport Office in Chennai after a plea was moved by filmmaker Leena Manimekalai challenging the impoundment of her passport, during a hearing on Thursday, Leena’s advocate Abudu Kumar Rajarathinam told Silverscreen India.
The case was heard by Justice R Mahadevan, who ordered the passport authorities to file a counter affidavit within two weeks detailing on what grounds they have impounded the filmmaker’s passport.
This comes as part of the battle Leena is fighting against filmmaker Susi Ganesan, whom she named as her harasser in 2018 during the #MeToo movement. Besides filing a defamation case against Leena, Ganesan also filed a petition to impound her passport. While his previous petition to do so was not entertained by the Saidapet Magistrate Court, Ganesan moved the court yet again and, in early September, Leena was notified that her passport was impounded by the Passport Authority, citing the defamation case pending against her.
Leena had been just set to travel to Canada to complete the last leg of her MFA Film program from York University when this happened. She then filed a writ petition with the Madras High Court to quash her passport impoundment.
Speaking to Silverscreen India about the Thursday hearing, Abudu Kumar said, “A show-cause notice was issued earlier asking why her passport had not been impounded and we had replied. However, they have not considered our reply and did not give us a personal hearing. Instead, they have impounded the passport in a defamation case. We challenged that and the court has asked on what grounds they have done this. Two weeks time has been granted to them to provide their reasons.”
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Earlier, Senthil Kumar, who is also part of the Leena’s legal team, had told us that the passport office had sent Leena a show-cause notice in February stating that a criminal case was pending against her and asking why her passport had not been impounded yet. “We sent them a reply in March saying that the issue is not a criminal or police case, but one pertaining to two parties, which makes it a private complaint. We had also issued an explanation stating why Leena’s passport cannot be impounded. After this, there was no communication, until this recent development [the passport impoundment]. We had also annexed all the documents, but they have passed the order without consideration,” he had said.