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In a move that solidifies the status of civil courts in Bengaluru as the go-to destination for gag orders, Reporter Broadcasting Company Private Limited that owns prominent Malayalam news channel Reporter TV, has secured a temporary injunction that places a restraint on several media and digital platforms.
The City Civil Sessions Court, Bengaluru has issued a temporary injunction restraining several TV channels, digital platforms, and news websites, including The News Minute (TNM), from publishing or sharing content allegedly defamatory to Reporter Broadcasting Company Private Limited.
In its suit, the Reporter Broadcasting Company headquartered in Kochi said their channel is popular in Karnataka and Kerala and has followers all over India for their journalism skills. In order to damage the image of the channel, the defendents are using social media and private photos and videos of the plaintiff, it alleged.
The entity wants all stories that mention the criminal cases in which their owners were/are accused of, to be taken down.
Reporter TV, was first launched in 2011, under the management of Indo-Asian News Channel Private Ltd, which had MV Nikesh Kumar, a senior journalist and Rani Varughese, his wife, as directors. Later, on July 1, 2023, the channel was relaunched under the same brand. The newly relaunched channel has brothers Roji Augustine as chairman, Jose Kutty Augustine as vice-chairman and Anto Augustine as Managing Director and Managing Editor.
The three brothers are the key accused in the Muttil tree felling case of 2020, related to cutting down of rosewood trees from assigned land. The three brothers were also accused in the Mango phone scam in 2016. Both these cases were filed before they took over the reins of the Reporter channel in 2023.
Many politicians and celebrities have secured gag orders against the media from courts in Bengaluru without giving journalists a chance to respond. Such orders are a growing trend in Bengaluru courts, TNM has reported earlier. Bengaluru courts issue gag orders easily.
The ad-interim gag order also has Ashok Kumar/John Doe among the list of defendants. The John Doe orders known as ‘Ashok Kumar orders’ in India, are widely used to silence journalists, publishers and activists. This basically allows the petitioner to demand removal of links published by any unnamed defendant.
The injunction suit names an extensive list of defendants including tech giants Google LLC, Facebook, and Instagram, alongside 12 prominent news organisations. While the print media defendants include The Hindu, Times of India, and Indian Express, Malayalam news channels named in the suit are Manorama News, Asianet News, Media One, News 18 Kerala, Zee Malayalam News, and Kerala Vision News 24x7. Besides TNM, digital platforms named are ETV Bharat and Malayalam India.
The News Minute has been asked to delete four URLs, including three news articles and one Instagram post: The news articles include an explainer on Kerala's "rotten mango” phone scam, a report on the Muttil tree felling case where a senior forest official alleged threats, a story on media wars involving the Reporter channel, after the new owners took over.
The court order restrains the publishing, circulating, sharing, providing access to, or communicating any ‘defamatory content’ against Reporter TV. The court also directs that the alleged URLs be de-indexed and made non-searchable across platforms.
The court order did not specify whether it was ex-parte. The temporary injection is till the next date of hearing. The suit summons issues to the defendants returnable by December 18.