Kerala magistrate issues arrest warrant against CM Achuthanandan India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

A judicial court issued an arrest warrant against Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan on Tuesday in connection with a defamation case filed against the newspaper Deshabhimani. Desabhimani is the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Kerala unit and Achuthanandan was the editor-in-chief of the paper in 2004. Cherthala is a town in Alappuzha District of Kerala. The judicial magistrate also issued arrest warrants against CPI (M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and the party's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha P Karunakaran, who were printer and publisher and general manager of the daily respectively. A reporter of the daily Jayapradeep was also named in the petition. K K Anil Kumar, a melshanti with a temple in Cherthala, filed the defamation case. In his complaint, Kumar had alleged that the report published on December 24, 2004 in the daily-contained defamatory statements against him. Earlier, the Kerala High Court stayed the hearing of the case for one month. The court expressed unhappiness over respondents repeated failure to appear before court even after summons were issued to them many times.