India News | Poet Moves Court to Return Passport

Chennai, Sep 23 (PTI) Poet and filmmaker Leena Manimekalai has moved the Madras High Court for a direction to the Regional Passport Officer to return her impounded passport.

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Justice R Mahadevan, before whom the writ petition came up for hearing on Thursday, ordered notice returnable by two weeks.

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According to Manimekalai, one Susi Ganeshan had preferred a private complaint against her for an offence under Sec. 500 of the IPC (defamation) and it was pending before the IX Metropolitan Magistrate in Saidapet.

Pending the same, Ganeshan, himself a film director against whom she had levelled sexual harassment charges during the 'MeToo' episode, also preferred a petition to impound her travel documents. However, the Magistrate closed the petition in November, 2020 which was also confirmed by the High Court in January this year.

While so, based on another petition from Ganeshan, the Magistrate reopened the case in August this year and passed an order directing the Passport Authority to proceed against the petitioner as per Sec. 10(3) of the Passport Act, on September 6.

She contended that reopening the same case by the Magistrate and reviewing her own order was arbitrary, illegal and against the prevailing law in force. And by an order dated September 9, the passport authority impounded her passport, the petitioner further contended. Hence, the present petition.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)