Dharmasthala case: High Court lifts gag order on media, rejects lower court's ex-parte injunction
Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has quashed the ex-parte injunction issued by a lower trial court that had barred media outlets from publishing or broadcasting any news related to D. Harshendra Kumar in connection with the ongoing Dharmasthala case, where allegations were made about the burial of hundreds of dead bodies.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna of the High Court partially upheld the petition filed by Ajay, the editor-in-chief of the YouTube channel Kudla Rampage, who had challenged the injunction. The trial court's order dated July 8, 2025, which imposed a sweeping media gag, was set aside.
The case will now be remanded back to the competent lower court to consider the interim petition filed by Kumar, taking into account the observations made by the High Court. The single-judge bench stated that the trial court must urgently decide on the interim plea and that all parties are free to argue their respective claims. The High Court made no remarks on the merits of the civil suit, criminal proceedings, or the specific allegations and counter-allegations involved in the case.
The court directed all involved parties, including Ajay and others, to cooperate fully with the lower court, emphasising that only one specific element of the original injunction order had been considered at this stage. A detailed copy of the High Court’s order is awaited.
D. Harshendra Kumar had filed a civil suit in the Additional City Civil and Sessions Court in Bengaluru, seeking to restrain the publication or sharing of 8,842 links across multiple platforms. These included 4,140 YouTube videos, 932 Facebook posts, 3,584 Instagram posts, 108 news articles, 37 Reddit threads, and 41 tweets, all of which he claimed were defamatory.
Despite not being named in the FIR lodged based on a sanitation worker’s complaint, Kumar argued that false and defamatory statements targeting him, his family, and his institutions were being widely circulated on digital and mainstream media. In response, the lower court had issued an ex-parte gag order on July 8, restraining all media houses and unknown individuals from publishing or disseminating such content until further proceedings.
This blanket ban was subsequently challenged in the High Court by Kudla Rampage, leading to Friday’s ruling lifting the restriction.
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'Rear-guard action': BJP over Mamata accepting sports minister's resignation after Messi event
New Delhi (PTI): The BJP on Tuesday alleged that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's accepting Aroop Biswas' resignation as the state sports minister is nothing but a "rear-guard action" to douse public anger over the mismanagement of football icon Lionel Messi's event last week.
BJP co-in-charge for West Bengal Amit Malviya alleged that this is also an "open confession" that the Messi event fiasco was not accidental but a government-manufactured disaster, borne out of the poor governance of Banerjee, her ministers and the state bureaucracy.
Banerjee on Tuesday accepted Biswas' resignation as the sports minister in the wake of the controversy over the mismanagement of football icon Messi's event last week, a senior leader of the ruling TMC said.
Biswas, who had written to the chief minister seeking to be relieved of his responsibilities as sports minister, will continue as a cabinet minister, retaining charge of the power department.
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Reacting to the development, Malviya said in a post on X, "TMC Sports Minister Aroop Biswas resigns after the Messi fiasco and Mamata Banerjee accepts it in record time."
"Do not mistake this for accountability; this is nothing but a rear-guard action to douse public anger. anger! This is not 'Raj Dharma'," he added.
The BJP leader alleged that the incident was the outcome of "loot" of common people which is "so synonymous" with the TMC.
The incident was also the outcome of the "shameless VIP culture that TMC thrives on and deep-rooted cronyism promoted by Banerjee," he charged.
Malviya further alleged that Biswas' resignation exposes a "collective failure of Mamata Banerjee, her partisan bureaucracy, and her crony cabinet".
"This is a symbolic sacrifice, a political hoax, soon to be buried under layers of bureaucracy, with no justice, no accountability, and no remorse," the BJP leader said, adding, "No resignation will bring back the time lost, the money wasted, or the stolen chance for football lovers to witness Messi in Kolkata."
