Madurai: The Madras High Court Bench here on Sunday transferred a PIL seeking invoking of National Security Act agsint SP Udayakumar, who is spearheading the protests against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP), to Chennai.
R Sivakumar, a Madurai-based hotelier, had filed the PIL seeking to direct the district authorities of Tirunelveli, where the plant is located to take deterrent steps to put down the "violent activities" of Udayakumar, the coordinator of People`s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMA), and detain him under NSA.

Justices N Paul Vasanthakumar and P Devadass said there was an administrative order issued by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court to transfer cases relating to KNPP to the principal seat, and transferred the case.
The petitioner`s counsel M Patturajan said unless the High Court intervened in the matter and directed authorities to take deterrent steps to put down the "violent activities" of Udayakumar and apprehend him under NSA, "this agitation will not come to an end in the near future".

In the PIL, the petitioner said a Peace Committee, made of members of the local population living around the plant, also came to the conclusion that the villagers who are agitating against the KNPP were being "thoroughly misled". Udayakumar was instigating the people to siege KNPP and he was "intimidating" the scientists and authorities at the Plant to remove uranium from the site, he alleged.
PTI