Sushrut Aravind Dharmadhikari, Who Heard Kerala Story 2 Plea, Appointed Chief Justice of Madras High Court

Thiruvananthapuram: Justice Sushrut Aravind Dharmadhikari has been appointed as the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court. He will assume office on March 6, following the retirement of the current Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Srivastava on March 5.

Justice Dharmadhikari, born in Raipur in 1966, graduated in law from Nagpur University. He began his legal practice at the Madhya Pradesh High Court and appeared for organisations including the Income Tax Department and the Reserve Bank of India. He was elevated as a judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2016 and was transferred to the Kerala High Court in April last year.

Justice Dharmadhikari was a member of the division bench that recently granted permission for the release of the film Kerala Story 2: Goes Beyond. The bench stayed the order of the Kerala High Court single bench, which had temporarily halted the release of the film for 15 days. The film was scheduled to hit theatres on Friday.

The division bench convened a special session on Thursday night to consider the petition filed by the producers and questioned whether a single bench could entertain a public interest litigation (PIL) in the matter. The court did not comment on the content of the film, which has been criticised for portraying Kerala and the Muslim community in a negative light.

Earlier, the single bench, headed by Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas, had held that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had overlooked central government norms requiring that films should not contain scenes that could incite societal hatred.