The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday directed the State government, or any of the authorities acting under it, not to carry out any adverse action against the editors of two tabloids, who, by a resolution passed by the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. were sentenced to one-year imprisonment for breaching privileges of the legislators.
Justice A.S. Bopanna passed the interim order after preliminary hearing on the petitions filed by Ravi Belagere, editor of Hi Bangalore and, Anil Raj, editor and publisher of Yelahanka Voice.
The court granted four weeks for the petitioners and respondents, including Speaker of the Assembly, three legislators: K.B. Koliwad (who is presently the Speaker of the Assembly), S.R. Vishwanath, and B.M. Nagaraja, the heads of the two separate Committees on Privileges (CoP) of the Assembly, and the State government to complete submission of relevant documents and pleading.
The petitioners had questioned the constitutional validity of the resolution passed by the Assembly on June 21, 2017, sentencing them to imprisonment based on two separate reports of the CoP, which had found the petitioner-editors guilty of breaching privileges for publishing “defamatory and false” articles against the three legislators in the two tabloids.
The Assembly, on November 21, 2017, reiterated its resolution of June 21 after the High Court, in connection with earlier petitions filed by the editors against the June resolution, had allowed them to submit a representation to the Assembly through the Speaker for reconsideration of the earlier resolution.
The petitioners had argued that neither the CoP nor the Assembly had jurisdiction to either proceed against them or sentence them to imprisonment when the articles published in their tabloids had nothing to do with proceedings of the Assembly or rights of legislators within the Assembly. The legislators, if aggrieved by the published articles, had to avail legal remedy available under the Indian Penal Code before a court law, it was argued in the petitions.
