Kushboo: What next?

Chennai, Nov. 18: Tamil actor Kushboo, facing a cartload of cases for her remarks on premarital sex in an interview, got a reprieve today when Madras High Court stayed proceedings against her in four lower courts in Tamil Nadu.

Justice T.V. Masilamani also exempted Kushboo from personal appearances in the judicial magistrate courts in Mettur, Ponamallee, Chengalpattu and Tiruvarur for four weeks.

The Mettur court had issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against her, while the other three had asked her to appear before them on November 23, November 24 and November 25.

More than 20 cases were filed against the actor in courts across the state after she said in an interview to a magazine in September that there was nothing wrong in premarital sex if it was safe.

Kushboo had surrendered in the Mettur court on Wednesday amid violent protests. Activists of the PMK and the Dalit Panthers of India had pelted her car with slippers, rotten tomatoes and eggs.

The actor’s petition, filed in the high court, pointed out that the incidents outside the Mettur court when she had gone to turn herself in were sufficient proof of her apprehensions against personal appearance.

There could be a “repeat” of the violence if she were to again go to the Mettur court on December 16, when the next hearing is slated, her petition said.

The Madurai bench of Madras High Court had admitted two similar petitions filed by Kushboo yesterday to stay a couple of cases pending against her before the judicial magistrate-II in Madurai and dispense with her personal appearance there.

In the complaints filed by PMK activists, the actor’s remarks have been challenged under several sections of the IPC, including 505(1)(b) that makes “statements conducing to public mischief” punishable with imprisonment up to three years or fine or both.

Several women’s organisations, including the CPM-affiliated All India Democratic Women’s Association, Women’s World (India) and People’s Union For Civil Liberties have come down strongly on the campaign against Kushboo and actor Suhashini Manirathnam, who has spoken in her colleague’s favour.