A non-bailable arrest warrant (NBW) has been issued by a court in ooty against eight tamil film actors including Suriya Sivakumar.

The case has been registered by Ooty Judicial Magjstrate Senthilkumar Rajavel, as they failed to appear before the court for a second consecutive time, in connection with a defamation case filed by a senior journalist, for their allegedly derogatory speech in 2009.

The tamil actors who have been issued the NBW are Suriya, Sarathkumar, Sathyaraj, Cheran, Vijayakumar, Vivek, Arun Vijay and Sripriya.

The case dates back to 2009 when a Tamil daily carried a report that alleged that an actress had raised charges of prostitution on a group of fellow actors and actresses. Following strong protests from the film fraternity, the newspaper had retracted the report and published an apology.

Following this, a senior correspondent, Rozario Mariya Susai, had lodged a private complaint with the Ooty Judicial magistrate against them under Section 200 (Examination of complaint by Magistrate) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) for the offense of sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of Indian Penal Code.

As the case came for trial before the Ooty Magistrate court, the actors moved the Madras High Court with a petition to quash the case. However, this petition was dismissed by the High Court in March, after which the trial resumed. When the case came up for hearing on May 15, the actors failed to appear. And it was the same when it came up for hearing again today. Following this, the judicial magistrate issued the NBW today.

The case has been posted to June 17 for the next hearing. 

SUPRAJA