The Supreme Court on Friday declined to restrain the media from publishing reports or commentary related to allegations of mass graves, disappearances and crimes against women and students over the past two decades in the temple town of Dharmasthala, reported Live Law.
A bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal and Manmohan directed a trial court to decide afresh on a plea seeking to gag such reporting, filed by Harshendra Kumar D, secretary of the Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Education Society and brother of Bharatiya Janata Party MP D Veerendra Heggade, according to Bar and Bench.
The Heggade family manages the Dharmasthala Manjunathaswamy Temple and the institutions affiliated with it.
Harshendra Kumar D had challenged the Karnataka High Court order from August 3, which set aside a gag order issued by a Bengaluru civil court on media outlets, YouTube channels and individuals.
On Friday, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the petitioner, alleged that the media was running a “defamatory campaign” while the investigation in the case was pending. He also showed the bench allegedly defamatory social media posts.
The bench said that while the temple management can claim damages for posts deemed defamatory, “gag orders are only passed in the rarest of rare cases”.
“For example the journalist gets to know that police officer has number of a terrorist,” Bar and Bench quoted Manmohan as saying. “Then they cannot publish. But gag orders are super injunctions. They stifle free speech.”
He added: “Let it be argued before the trial court. There is no documentary evidence. We live in a free country.”
In July, a first information report was registered in Dharamasthala based on a complaint by a sanitary worker, who alleged that he was forced to bury the bodies of several women bearing signs of sexual assault.
On July 19, the Karnataka government announced the formation of a Special Investigation Team to probe the case.
Home Minister G Parameshwara had on August 1 reviewed the investigation and said the state was also monitoring social media posts about the case that could “wrongly impact society”.
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