Joseph Vijay, Tamil film industry’s reigning ‘mega’ star got a major relief from Madras High Court on Tuesday as a division bench ordered the expunging of certain critical comments made by a single bench judge against the former in July 2021. The judge's scathing comments on him had pained the actor and he had approached the court with a plea to remove the same.
S M Subramaniam, the judge of the Madras High Court, while hearing a plea filed by the actor seeking exemption from paying entry tax for a Rolls Royce Ghost car which he had imported from England had slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh and gave him a piece of his mind which hogged national headlines.
“The public consider you as a role model- a real hero. You should have promptly paid the entry tax the moment the authorities asked you to pay it. Actors who portray themselves as champions of social justice and against corruption should not evade tax. Super stars are not expected to behave like reel heroes. Tax evasion is to be construed as an anti-national habit, attitude and mindset and unconstitutional,” Judge Subramaniam has observed in this verdict.
Vijay, who was pained by these comments filed a petition seeking its expunging. A Division Bench consisting of Pushpa Sathyanarayana and Mohammed Shaffiq on Tuesday allowed the appeal filed by Vijay and ordered the removal of the “scathing remarks” made by the single bench judge in paragraphs 7,8, 9 and 12 of the order dated 13 July 2021.
Senior lawyer Vijay Narayan, who represented Vijay, had contended that the adverse remarks had created negative publicity and were hurtful and noted that the court had rejected similar pleas for tax exemption but had not made comments like those directed against Vijay.