Chennai, Jan 25( BPNS)

The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Advocate P. Babu seeking direction to the Union defense ministry to include Tamil Nadu tableaux in the Republic Day parade.

The first bench of the Madras High Court represented by Acting Chief Justice (ACJ) Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice P.D. Adikesavalu while rejecting the petition said that the petitioner had not submitted any written document to show that Tamil Nadu had applied to participate in the parade.

The court also said that there was no mention in the litigant’s plea on the reasons cited by the officials to reject the Tamil Nadu government’s plea.

The first bench of the Madras High Court while rejecting the petition also said that the court cannot interfere in the eleventh hour on a PIL-seeking directive.

It may be noted that Tamil Nadu is in a war of words with the Union government after the latter rejected the tableaus presented by the state government. State Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi objected strongly to the rejection of the tableaus and said that the state depicted freedom fighters like V.O. Chidambaranar, Poet Subramania Bharathiar who is known as Mahakavi in Tamil Nadu, Rani Velu Nachiyar who is considered as the first Indian queen to wield a sword against the British and Maruthur brothers who were executed by the East India company.

The Union Defense minister Rajnath Singh had in response to the letter written by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to the Prime Minister said that the tableaus of Tamil Nadu were rejected in the third round itself by the expert committee. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister responded to this by stating that they were rejected in the fourth round without giving any reasons for the same.