Alleged defamatory comments on Home Secretary: Supreme Court orders Govt. not to take coercive action against a CPI(M) member.

The Kerala High Court has ordered the state to refrain from coercive action against Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) Ernakulam lawyer and district secretariat member KS Arunkumar, who was accused of defaming Home Minister Ramesh Chennithal by commenting on his recent foreign trip to the United States on social media.

Justice CS Dias further ordered that Mr. Arunkumar must be informed before any questioning to investigate offenses under the Kerala Police Act (KP Act), 2011.

The court was considering Mr. Arunkumar’s plea to quash the First Information Report (FIR) registered against him and all other proceedings related to it. He was charged with offenses under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Act, 2023 for inciting riots and committing the offense of defamation and harassment under the KP Act.

The Thiruvananthapuram City Cyber ​​Crime Police Station registered a case based on a complaint by BS Subija, a member of the United Democratic Front (UDF), who alleged that Mr. Arunkumar shared defamatory and inflammatory posts on social media targeting the Home Minister.

However, Mr Arunkumar claimed in his petition that the social media post he posted only contained political observations comparing the media coverage political leaders receive for foreign trips in different tenures. He pointed out that even if the allegations were taken at face value, they did not amount to any of the offenses registered in the FIR.

Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan recently accused the government of adopting an authoritarian approach to criticism in a Facebook post after the police registered a case. He said Mr Arunkumar “raises relevant questions about the home minister’s journey” and that the move to register a case against him reflected the government’s “extreme intolerance of criticism”.

Published – 25 Sep 2026 20:33 IST