ORDER

1. This is a petition for anticipatory bail under Section 482 of BNSS. The petitioner is the first accused in Crime No. 157 of 2026 on the file of the Inspector of Police, B-2 Esplanade Police Station, Chennai, registered for offences under Sections 296(b), 352 and 353(1)(c) of BNS. Investigation is pending.

2. The prosecution case, briefly stated, is as follows. On 7 October 2026, at a function of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam held at Raja Annamalai Mandram, Chennai, the petitioner—a Councillor of Ward No. 95 of the Greater Chennai Corporation and a functionary of that party’s women’s wing—presided over the gathering and addressed it. She is alleged to have used derogatory and abusive words in relation to the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. The counter-affidavit summarises the expressions as referring to him as a “dog” and a “corpse”, together with other objectionable language, with the intention, as the first information report puts it, of defaming him, disturbing public peace and creating enmity between two groups. A video of the speech was uploaded on social media and is said to have caused apprehension and tension among the general public.

3. A transcription of the speech forms part of the typed set, and I have read it. The speech taunts the Hon’ble Chief Minister about his age, calls him a dog and a corpse, and asserts that he captured power by putting out reels rather than by work. Nobody before me sought to defend the language, and I will not reproduce more of it than the decision requires. Two features of the speech are material to everything that follows. First, it was directed at one individual—the head of a rival political party—and at no community or class of persons. Second, it was platform rhetoric addressed to a party gathering; it exhorted nobody to any act.

4. The speech was delivered on 7 October 2026. For twelve days thereafter, no complaint was made. On 19 October 2026, a functionary of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam—the party in office, of which the Hon’ble Chief Minister is the leader—presented a complaint at the police station, resting on the circulating video and claiming no grievance personal to himself. The first information report was registered the same hour. That night, at about 9.35 p.m., a notice under Section 35(3) of the BNSS was served on the petitioner’s daughter, requiring the petitioner—then away at Bengaluru for a family function and medical treatment—to appear by the next afternoon. Her daughter and son-in-law attended the station the following morning with a written explanation and a request for reasonable time. A second notice issued that day for the morning after.On 21 October 2026 the petitioner presented this petition.

5. The respondent has filed a counter-affidavit and the petition is opposed on its lines: the petitioner failed to appear in response to either notice, while the second accused appeared in response to the first; she has filed this petition “only to escape from the clutches of law and drag on the investigation proceedings”; there is a possibility of absconding, of tampering with the evidence and of threatening witnesses; and “there is a reasonable apprehension that she may again deliver speeches containing defamatory and derogatory remarks against the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu”, likely to “disturb public peace, promote hostility among supporters of rival political parties, and create law and order problems”.

6. After the petition was filed, the petitioner placed three documents on record:

(i) a transcription of a video posted on her own Instagram account, in which she states that she spoke in an emotional state, that senior functionaries of her own party counselled her against such language at the venue itself, and that she expressed regret to her party leader then and there;

(ii) an affidavit sworn on 29 October 2026 tendering an apology to the Hon’ble Chief Minister, with an undertaking of care and restraint in her future public utterances; and (iii) an