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A Bengaluru City Civil and Sessions Court has imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on Reporter TV and dismissed its civil suit seeking the removal of news reports and videos from media and online platforms, after holding that the channel misused an interim court order and later withdrew the case without giving any reasons.
In an order passed on December 18, the court also directed Reporter TV to restore all URLs, articles, and news reports that were taken down pursuant to an ex parte ad interim injunction granted on October 25, 2025, and make them accessible to the public within one week.
The suit, filed by Reporter TV against multiple media organisations and digital platforms including The News Minute (TNM), sought a permanent injunction against reports it claimed were defamatory, including coverage related to the Muttil illegal tree-felling case. The channel’s directors, the Augustine brothers, are accused in connection with the illegal felling of reserved forest trees in Kerala, in cases that are currently under criminal proceedings.
Notably, the interim injunction obtained by Reporter TV was stayed by the Karnataka High Court on December 3. The defendants in the case also appeared before the trial court and challenged the order, soon after which Reporter TV moved to withdraw the suit without explaining why.
The judge said this sequence showed a lack of good faith by the plaintiff, Reporter TV, and amounted to an abuse of the judicial process, noting that withdrawing the suit following the stay of the interim order “itself shows that there is no bona fide on the part of the plaintiff while approaching before the court.” The court added that such conduct caused hardship to the defendants, affected the public, and wasted the court’s time.
“What is the concern of this court is when a voluminous suit has been filed by the plaintiff and after obtaining the interim order from the court and after the appearance of the defendants, why the memo has been moved by the plaintiff in order to withdraw the suit without assigning any reason for the same (sic),” the court said.
The court also took note of objections raised by several defendants, who alleged that Reporter TV had secured the interim order by withholding key facts and later misused it to pressure media outlets into taking down reports. They pointed out that although the court had not ordered permanent deletion of content, legal notices were issued asking for reports and videos to be permanently removed and not republished.
The court examined one such legal notice and observed that it wrongly claimed the court had ordered permanent deletion, even though no mandatory injunction had been granted.
Reporter TV’s counsel told the court that he was unaware of his clients’ conduct at the time the suit was filed and said the decision to withdraw the case was taken after the interim order was stayed by the High Court.
The court also referred to a 2025 Supreme Court judgement in Bloomberg Television Production Services India Pvt Ltd v Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, which cautions courts against granting interim injunctions in defamation cases that could be used to silence media reporting and public participation through prolonged litigation.
Without commenting on the merits of the defamation claims, the court allowed Reporter TV to withdraw the suit but imposed costs of Rs 10,000. It dismissed the case as “not pressed” and directed Reporter TV to restore all articles, URLs, and reports removed due to the interim order within one week, noting that no ex parte mandatory injunction had ever been issued.