Chennai: In a reprieve to AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP and former law minister C Ve Shanmugam, Madras high court quashed an order passed by the Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women, which had directed the DGP to initiate criminal proceedings against him for his reported derogatory remarks against women. Justice A D Jagadish Chandira quashing the order primarily on procedural grounds, allowing Shanmugam’s challenge against the commission’s order dated Nov 11, 2025.TN State Commission for Women, as per rules, comprises its five members as well as the chairperson. However, the summons issued against Shanmugam, and the recommendation issued to DGP, were signed only by the chairperson, the court pointed out. “In such perspective, this court holds that the proceedings initiated by the chairperson against the petitioner, including the recommendation dated Nov 11, 2025, addressed to the DGP, cannot be sustained in the eyes of law,” the judge said.As to the allegations of the remarks made by Shanmugam, the court said: “Having gone through the petitioner’s speech, this court is of the view that the same cannot be, by any stretch of imagination, construed to be misogynistic in nature or demeaning womenfolk.”“Instead, it can only be construed as a critique of the policy of the govt giving freebies. Just because the petitioner stated that, along with other commodities, the govt may announce even one wife free to each citizen, it can no way be inferred or understood that the petitioner, by his speech, equated women with commodities given by the govt gratis,” the judge added.
