An Ooty court today issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against eight Tamil actors for not appearing before the court regarding the defamation case filed by a senior journalist in 2009. Ooty Judicial Magistrate Senthilkumar Rajavel issued the warrant against Suriya, Sathyaraj, Cheran, Vijayakumar, Sarathkumar, Arun Vijay, Vivek and Sripriya as they failed to appear before the court for the second time consecutively. It was in 2009, a leading Tamil daily published a news that an actress raised charges of prostitution on the above list of actors.

After the news turned controversial, the newspaper published an apology. However the actors seemed not to calm down and organized a public protest abusing the senior journalist Rozario Mariya Susai after which Rozario filed a complaint in Ooty. After two attempts, the Ooty court issued a non-bailable warrant on Suriya, Sathyaraj, Cheran, Vijayakumar, Sarathkumar, Arun Vijay, Vivek and Sripriya as they failed to appear before the court. The next hearing will take place on June 17th.