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The Supreme Court on Friday, August 8, denied relief to Dharmasthala temple secretary Harshendra Kumar in his plea to gag the media from reporting the alleged mass burial. Harshendra, who is the brother of Dharmasthala Dharmadikari Veerendra Heggade, had approached the apex court after the Karnataka High Court quashed a Bengaluru civil court order imposing a media gag on the Dharmasthala mass burial case.
The SC bench comprising Justices Rajesh Bindal and Manmohan said that in cases of specific defamatory posts, the temple can always claim relief, but objected to a media gag.
"Gag orders are only passed in the rarest of rare cases. For example, the journalist gets to know that a police officer has the number of a terrorist. Then they can’t publish. But gag orders are super injunctions. They stifle free speech. In this cas,e there is one sanitation worker. If we pass a super injunction even his statement cannot be reported," Justice Manmohan said, adding that the matter could be considered by the trial court itself.
Representing the temple administration, Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi had argued that with each passing day, news channels were defaming Dharmasthala, and that the internet is flooded with defamatory memes.
Subsequently, the bench directed a trial court in Karnataka to decide afresh on Harshendra’s plea to restrain the publication of allegedly defamatory reports related to the Dharmasthala mass burials.
"You show all this to the trial court. Let them apply their mind independently and decide," Justice Manmohan said.
The trial court has been directed to decide on the new application within two weeks from Saturday, August 9.
Legal meanderings of the Dharmasthala case
Harshendra’s case before the Supreme Court is based on the media coverage born out of allegations made by a whistleblower – a former sanitation worker employed at the Dharmasthala Manjunathaswamy Temple. The worker claimed in a police complaint that he had been forced by his supervisors to bury numerous bodies, including those of women, for nearly two decades.
Following this, Harshendra Kumar filed a civil defamation suit before a sessions court in Bengaluru in July. The court passed a blanket gag order till August 5 against the media from reporting the issue.
However, a subsequent writ filed by YouTube channel Kundla Rampage before the Karnataka HC led to the gag order being lifted.
Also Read: YouTubers assaulted in Dharmasthala, police lathicharge to control tension