New Delhi: A Bengaluru court on Saturday restrained 68 media houses from telecasting or publishing ‘defamatory’ news related to the alleged sex-for-job scandal against six ministers in the Karnataka government until the next date of hearing, news reports said.
The move comes after the ministers – Shivaram Hebbar, B.C. Patil, H.T. Somashekhar, K. Sudhakar, Narayan Gowda and Bhyrati Basavaraj – moved a civil court Friday expressing apprehension of being defamed after their colleague resigned over the scandal. They sought restraint on defamatory content as some media houses have been projecting the existence of 19 CDs involving MLAs and ministers, Indian Express reported.
All the six ministers had defected from the Congress-JDS coalition to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the leadership of chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa in 2019.
Earlier, state’s water resources minister Ramesh Jarkiholi resigned after TV channels played a video CD allegedly featuring him and an unidentified young woman in a sex-for-job scandal. In his resignation letter, Jarkiholi said the allegations were false and that he was resigning from the cabinet to save the party from embarrassment.
The ministers in a joint suit stated that the broadcast of such news is not only causing embarrassment to their families, but the voters of their constituencies are also presuming that the ministers are involved in scandals, the report added.
“Media channels in the state of Karnataka including social media platforms telecasted and published news titled as Sex Scandal of the State Minister Sri. Ramesh Jarkiholi alleging that the said minister sought favours from a woman promising her a job. Same was telecasted/published even before verifying the news, its sources and authenticity, resulting in Sri. Ramesh Jarkiholi resigning as minister. In close heel of the same, it is alleged that some of the media houses are telecasting/publishing news that there are other CDs containing several sex scandals pertaining to MLAs, ministers and there are around 19 CDs of different MLAS and ministers including that of an influential politician from Old Mysore region,” the joint statement read, as per the News Minute.
The ministers even implied to the use of deep fake technology, which is used to create fake audio and video, the report added.
The 26th civil and session court judge D.S. Vijaya Kumar said: “I am of opinion that the media should walk an extra mile to get news and its source verified through legally admissible process, whereupon it should be ready to shoulder responsibility for such news items and then publish or telecast the same, so as to advance the cause of freedom of expression as well as right of the citizens to know about public affairs.”
The judge added: “It is necessary to injunct telecasting or publishing of any unverified news items against the plaintiffs/applicants”.
“Media is considered to be the fourth pillar of our democracy. At the same time, plaintiffs have right to be protected against their character assassination on the basis of unverified material,” the court order added, as per the report.