Accused in bribery case, Karnataka BJP MLA Madal Virupakshappa obtains gag order on defamatory media reports

The civil court on Monday allowed the plea for the temporary injunction, and stated: “The defendants are hereby temporarily restrained from airing or broadcasting or publishing or expressing any defamatory opinion against the plaintiffs in the news channels, public media and also conducting any panel discussions in any manner, till the next date of hearing.”

The BJP MLA from Channagiri in the Davanagere district, who was the chairman of the state-run firm Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Ltd, is accused of collecting bribes through his son Prashant Madal, a Karnataka Administrative Services official and CFO of Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), for clearing contracts for the supply of raw materials to KSDL. Prashant was caught on March 2 while allegedly accepting Rs 40 lakh from a businessman.

The police have named the KSDL chairman and Virupakshappa as accused number one and his son as the second of six accused in the bribery case. The police are yet to arrest the BJP MLA.

Virupakshappa has moved the civil court for a media gag order under Order 7, Rules 1 and 2, read with section 26 of the Civil Procedure Code.

Over the last few years—especially since the proliferation of television channels and online media—local courts in Bengaluru have issued ex parte gag orders on the media in several cases brought by bureaucrats, police officers, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen who were embroiled in controversies. In most of the cases, the ex-parte temporary injunctions against the publication and broadcast of material have been issued by the civil courts by citing a 1986 order of the Karnataka High Court.

Recently, a civil court issued a notice of temporary injunction to the Karnataka IPS officer Roopa Moudgil and 59 media outlets on the basis of a plea filed by the IAS officer Rohini Sindhuri for stopping the publishing and broadcasting of material that is defamatory and negatively impacting the IAS officer.

In the 1986 case, the Karnataka HC while approving a temporary injunction granted by a court to a police officer, B N Garudachar, over the reporting of allegations made against him by a legislator A K Subbaiah, ruled that the freedom of speech and expression entails a corresponding duty.

According to the 1986 judgment, the right to freedom of speech and expression is controlled by a corresponding duty not to infringe on the rights of others. “It is no doubt true that one has got a right to expose corrupt practices found in society. But there are methods and ways by which one can expose them. But if in the guise of exposing corrupt practices, a person makes statements which are per se defamatory, he cannot be excused on the ground that he might take up the plea of justification or truth later on,” states the 1986 high court order.

In 2015, Sudhir Reddy, the husband of IAS officer Sindhuri—who was then linked to an IAS officer D K Ravi who died by suicide in March of that year—obtained two separate gag orders covering 42 media entities against reporting the links of the two IAS colleagues.

In the same year, IAS officer Kapil Mohan in whose private apartment an amount of Rs 4.37 crore in cash was found during a CID raid, obtained two separate gag orders covering 61 media entities against reportage of the police cases against the officer.

Lokayukta police recovers 6 crore rupees from the house of BJP MLA Madaal Virupakshappa’s son Prashanth Kumar a day after he was allegedly caught taking bribe from a contractor, in Bengaluru. (PTI)

In 2017, a civil judge ordered an ex parte temporary injunction against the online publication The Wire based on two suits filed by Rajeev Chandrasekhar over the publication of two articles about the conflict of interest between the BJP leader’s credentials as an MP and a businessman with interests in defence and media.

In February 2019, BJP youth leader and Mysore MP Prathap Simha obtained a gag order against 49 media outlets for reporting on an alleged audio clip featuring a purported controversial conversation of the MP. In March 2019, BJP’s Tejasvi Surya obtained a gag order against reportage of a broken relationship following the emergence of aspects of the relationship on social media.

In March 2020, a civil and sessions judge granted a gag order in favour of the former BJP minister Ramesh Jarkiholi after he approached the court against 69 media outlets saying his reputation would be damaged irreparably if the media is not barred from continuing to broadcast recordings of his private affairs. This was following the broadcast of a sex CD featuring the BJP leader.

In the same year, a civil and sessions court in Bengaluru granted a temporary media gag order in favour of six ministers in the BJP government after they approached the court expressing apprehension of being defamed—in the wake of media channels exposing the sex CD of Ramesh Jarkiholi, and forcing his resignation.

The six ministers—Shivaram Hebbar, B C Patil, S T Somashekhar, K Sudhakar, K C Narayan Gowda, and Byrathi Basavaraj—were part of a group of 17 Congress and Janata Dal(Secular) MLAs who quit the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in 2019 and defected to the BJP to help the saffron party come to power under the leadership of BJP veteran B S Yediyurappa.

In many of the instances where the gag orders on the media have been obtained by public personalities, the higher courts have ruled the order only bars false information from being propagated and that reporting based on facts is not barred.

A division bench of the Karnataka High Court comprising acting chief justice L N Swamy and P S Dinesh Kumar lifted a March 2019 media gag order against publishing “false, malicious and derogatory” news about the then BJP Bangalore South Lok Sabha candidate Tejasvi Surya.

The gag order was appealed against by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

“The trial judge has restrained the defendants from making defamatory statements against the plaintiff. What is defamatory can be tested only if an act of making a statement or telecasting a program is challenged by the aggrieved person before an appropriate forum. Therefore in our view, the defendants are not barred from publishing or telecasting any news item that is not defamatory in their opinion,” the high court stated in its order.