Madras HC reserves order on plea from actor Vijay seeking deletion of adverse remarks

Chennai: The Madras High Court on Monday reserved orders on an appeal from Tamil actor Vijay, who sought removal of adverse remarks in an order by a single judge in a matter related to his earlier plea seeking exemption from entry tax for an imported car.

A Division Bench of Justices Pushpa Sathyanarayana and Mohammed Shaffiq reserved orders after listening to arguments advanced by Vijay’s senior counsel.

The counsel told the judges that the ‘unwanted remarks’ made by Justice S M Subramaniam in July this year had hurt the sentiments of his client and lowered his image in the eyes of his fans and friends. As directed by the single judge, his client had remitted the remainder of entry tax of about Rs 32 lakh to the Commercial Tax Department in August.

Vijay, alias C Joseph Vijay, was also ready to donate money for any public purpose, preferably to the Adyar Cancer Institute, the senior advocate added and sought the court to expunge the ‘unnecessary disparaging remarks’ made by the single judge against his client.

When the bench wondered as to whether the remarks of the single judge had not resulted in more popularity to the actor, the senior counsel replied that it had, in fact, hurt his client. Filing a petition, challenging the demand for entry tax was not a sin. The remarks had damaged his reputation and painted him as some sort of a criminal, the counsel contended.

Vijay had imported a Rolls Royce Ghost car from the United Kingdom in 2012. Justice Subramaniam had made certain observations vis-a-vis Vijay.

Among other things, the judge had observed that ”reel heroes should be real heroes in real life”. After imposing a cost of Rs 1 lakh on him, the judge had directed him to remit the remaining amount of 80 percent of the entry tax.