The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday ordered issue of notices to the Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, the two separate committees on privileges of the Assembly, the State government, and three MLAs on the petitions filed by editors of two Kannada tabloids, who were held guilty of breach of privileges of the legislators and were sentenced to one-year imprisonment by the Assembly.
Justice A.S. Bopanna, before whom the petitions filed by Ravi Belagere, editor of Hi Bangalore, and Anil Raj, editor of Yelahanka Voice, adjourned further hearing till December 6 while observing that issues raised on the petitions require the court’s consideration.
When Senior Counsel Ashok Haranahalli, appearing for the petitioners, sought an interim direction against implementation of Assembly’s resolution of imposing imprisonment, the court observed that it hoped that the authorities concerned would act “magnanimously” as the matter is pending before the court for adjudication.
Earlier, it was contended on behalf of the petitioners that the articles published in the tabloids against legislators – K.B. Koliwad (who is presently Speaker of the Assembly), S.R. Vishwanath and B.M. Nagaraja – were not related to any proceedings or issues covered under the privileges of MLAs within the Legislative Assembly and hence, the Committee on Privileges (CoP) had no jurisdiction to deal with the complaints filed by the three legislators.
The petitioners had moved the court again after the Assembly on November 21 reiterated its earlier resolution of June 21, 2017 imposing one-year prison sentence and ₹10,000 fine based on the recommendation of CoP for publishing “defamatory and false” articles against three MLAs. It has been claimed in the petition that the three MLAs, if aggrieved by articles published by the tabloids, had to avail legal remedy available under Indian Penal Code as the articles are not related to the proceedings of the Assembly.
