The Chennai High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the late Chief Minister Karunanidhi’s amendment to a song written by Manonmaniyam Sundaranar and declaring it a Tamil greeting song.
In the second paragraph of the song written by Manonmaniyam Sundaranar, which starts with ‘Neerarum Kadalutta’, M. Karunanidhi, who was the Chief Minister in the year 1970, declared it as a Tamil greeting song by removing the lines referring to Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Tulu and Sanskrit. Accordingly, since then, Tamil greetings have been sung in government programs. J. Mohanraj, the General Secretary of the Jepmani Janata Party, filed a case in the High Court in 2007 against the editing of the entire song written by Manonmaniyam Sundaranar.
In his petition, he pointed out that unlike the Sanskrit language, the Tamil language was young and the removal of the said lines comparing other Dravidian languages was an act of contempt for Manonmaniyam Sundaranar. He therefore demanded that the revised song be included in Tamil textbooks and that it be declared illegal to sing at festivals.
Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bandari, who is in charge of the case, appeared before a bench comprising Justice Adikesavalu, who said that the state had the right to change the Tamil life of Pleader P. Muthukumar and that the petitioner did not have the patent for the song and demanded that the case be dismissed. Following amended in 1970 and continued to be sung, the judges dismissed the case of Jepmani Mohanraj, saying that the case could not be accepted after 37 years.