Kerala magistrate issues arrest warrant against CM Achuthanandan
Cherthala (Kerala):
A judicial court issued an arrest warrant against Kerala Chief Minister
VS Achuthanandan on Tuesday in connection with a defamation case filed against
the newspaper Deshabhimani. Desabhimani is the mouthpiece of the Communist Party
of India (Marxist) Kerala unit and Achuthanandan was the editor-in-chief of the
paper in 2004. Cherthala is a town in Alappuzha District of Kerala. The judicial
magistrate also issued arrest warrants against CPI (M) state secretary Pinarayi
Vijayan and the party's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha P Karunakaran, who were
printer and publisher and general manager of the daily respectively. A reporter
of the daily Jayapradeep was also named in the petition. K K Anil Kumar, a melshanti
with a temple in Cherthala, filed the defamation case. In his complaint, Kumar
had alleged that the report published on December 24, 2004 in the daily-contained
defamatory statements against him. Earlier, the Kerala High Court stayed the hearing
of the case for one month. The court expressed unhappiness over respondents repeated
failure to appear before court even after summons were issued to them many times.
