‘Desiya Thalaivar’ Tamil Movie Poster | Photo credit: Special arrangement
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Madras High Court to ban the Tamil film Desiya Thalaivar, a biopic on Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar, on the grounds that it depicts unconfirmed cases related to former Chief Minister K. Kamaraj.
Proceedings adjourned
Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan on Wednesday adjourned the hearing for a week and asked Additional Solicitor General J. Ravindran to go through the documents before submitting his submissions.
A. Hari Nadar, founder and president of Shatriya Sandror Padai, filed a PIL alleging that the misrepresentation of facts related to Kamaraj in the biopic, released in theaters on October 30, could lead to clashes between people from the Nadar and Thevar communities.
Mr. Nadar further said that the film claims that the former chief minister faced a challenge in contesting the 1936 Virudhunagar municipal elections due to a rule that required contestants to hold some property and submit a property tax certificate along with their nomination.
K. Kamaraj. File | Photo credit: The Hindu
In the film, it was depicted as Muthuramalinga Thevar trying to convince Kamaraj’s mother to transfer her property to her son, but his efforts ended in vain as the elderly woman refused to part with the property and insisted on keeping it for her daughter to marry.
The makers of the film alleged that Muthuramalinga Thevar bought a lamb, paid tax on it in the name of Kamaraj, thereby helping the latter in the local body elections. The petitioner claimed that it was a fabricated story, but there is no documentary evidence to prove such an incident.
The PIL petitioner also said that a similar story was included in the Class VII Tamil textbook in 2019. The petitioner immediately submitted a representation to the then Education Minister KA Sengottaiyan and after due consideration these sections were deleted from the school textbooks.
Stating that the same story has now been told in a biopic, the petitioner accused the film’s director R. Aravintha Raj and production company SSR Sathya Pictures of trying to defame Kamaraj, whose rule in Tamil Nadu was remembered for advances in irrigation, education and industrial growth.
The petitioner sought a direction to the Tamil Nadu government to ban the film.
Published – 13 Nov 2025 0:40 AM IST
