With the Tamil Nadu government accepting the apology of Union minister Shobha Karandlaje for linking the Rameswaram Café blast in Bengaluru in March this year with Tamils, the Madras High Court on Thursday quashed the FIR registered against her.

The minister, hailing from Karnataka, had filed the affidavit before the Madras High Court, apologising for her comments if they have hurt the Tamil people. She had said that the bombers were trained in Tamil Nadu.

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Granting relief to the minister, Justice G Jayachandran quashed the FIR after Advocate General PS Raman submitted that the case can be closed after recording the affidavit of apology filed by her.

Earlier, the Tamil Nadu government insisted on her making the apology through a press conference, since she had made the hurtful remarks before the media. During the previous hearing, the Judge too observed that it was only appropriate for her to tender the apology in a presser. He also questioned how she could make such a statement even before the NIA, probing the blast, could come out with its findings.

“I state that the alleged comments made by me about the people of Tamil Nadu while addressing the media about the Rameshwaram Café bomb blast in Bengaluru was made without any intention to hurt the sentiments and feelings of the people of Tamil Nadu.

“I have the highest respect and regard to the history, rich culture, tradition and to the people of Tamil Nadu and I had or have no intention whatsoever to hurt the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu by any conduct of mine. I hereby once again tender my apology to the people of Tamil Nadu,” reads the affidavit.

Previously, the minister had contended that she had contended that she had expressed her apology through social media and that was enough for the case to be quashed.

The FIR was registered by the Madurai police on a complaint that the minister’s remark was intended to foment enmity between Tamils and Kannadigas. And the minister had approached the High Court, seeking to quash it, contending that the case, filed with an ulterior motive, was an abuse of the process of law and against freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution.