Chennai: Madras high court on Wednesday quashed the detention order passed under the Goondas Act against Uma Shankar, who was arrested for allegedly illegally releasing Tamil movie Jana Nayagan, starring Tamil Nadu chief minister C Joseph Vijay.A division bench of Justice N Sathish Kumar and Justice K Rajasekar passed the order on a plea moved by Uma Shankar’s sister Renukadevi. The film was originally scheduled for release during the 2026 Pongal festival.However, the release was postponed as the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) refused certification for the movie and referred the film to a revising committee for review. While the movie was pending review, on April 3, the film was illegally leaked and uploaded on the internet.Based on a complaint from producer of the movie KVN Productions, the Chennai cyber-crime police registered a case against 21 persons and arrested more than 10 people in connection with the leak.Uma Shankar, a freelance editor was one of the arrested accused. On July 30, the Chennai City Police Commissioner passed an order detaining him under the Goondas Act.When the plea came up for hearing, the petitioner submitted that Uma Shankar was working as a manager at a prominent textile showroom in T Nagar and was not involved in any film-related editing work. It was further argued that the police commissioner had passed the detention order mechanically, without properly applying his mind.Recording the submissions, the bench quashed his detention under Goondas.
