Move HC first: Supreme Court on YouTube channel's direct appeal against trial court media gag in Dharmasthala case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to directly entertain a plea by YouTube channel Third Eye, which challenged a Bengaluru court order restraining the publication of any defamatory content against Harshendra Kumar D, brother of Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Veerendra Heggade, in relation to the Dharmasthala temple burial case [Third Eye YouTube Channel v. Sei Harshendra Kumar D and ors].

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai and Justices Vinod Chandran and Joymalya Bagchi urged the channel to first approach the Karnataka High Court in the matter.

"9,000 video links have been asked to be taken off. This is a gag order," counsel for Third Eye had argued today.

CJI Gavai, however, replied,

"First go to the High court and then come here. We cannot discourage our High Courts."

The YouTube channel had contended that the sessions court's gag order was secured through a calculated abuse of judicial process and material misrepresentation by Harshendra Kumar (plaintiff). It further stated that the order obstructs a high-level state criminal investigation into allegations of mass burials and serious crimes linked to the influential Dharmasthala temple.

"It is a frontal assault on the freedom of speech and press (Article 19(1)(a)) and the foundational principles of natural justice and due process (Article 21)," the plea stated.

The case arose after several media houses reported the allegations made by a sanitation worker claiming that he had buried several bodies in Dharmasthala. The sanitation worker also filed a complaint in which he stated he was threatened by his supervisors and forced to bury bodies at the Dharmasthala temple. However, he did not name any specific individuals as being involved in a crime.

Harshendra Kumar, who is the Secretary of Sri Manjunathaswamy Temple institutions in Dharmasthala, then filed a defamation suit in which he highlighted a list of 8,842 links - which include 4,140 YouTube videos, 932 Facebook posts, 3,584 Instagram posts, 108 news articles, 37 Reddit posts, and 41 tweets - to the trial court.

Before the court, Kumar alleged that false and defamatory statements were being made online and in the media against him, his family, the temple and its institutions, despite there being no accusations against them in the first information reports (FIRs).

The court was informed that one of the FIRs from 2012 had already led to an acquittal, and another recent FIR made no mention of him or his institutions.

Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge Vijaya Kumar Rai proceeded to restrain the defendants and unknown persons from posting or sharing any defamatory material across digital, social or print media until the next hearing.

It also passed a mandatory injunction directing the removal or de-indexing of already published defamatory content.

"The Court cannot ignore the fact that though the reputation of every citizens is very important, when an allegation is made against the institution, and temple, it affects wider range of people including the employees and students who are studying in various colleges and schools. Therefore, even a single false and defamatory publication would seriously affect the functioning of the institutions," the Bengaluru court's order stated.

This led to the appeal before the Supreme Court, which it declined to entertain today.