Bed scam:Local court restrains media houses from publishing news against BJP MLA Satish Reddy

Bengaluru: A local court here has restrained certain media houses from publishing or transmitting any news or articles against BJP MLA Satish Reddy with regard to the alleged scam related to blocking hospital beds under government quota during the peak of second wave of COVID-19.

The order was based on a defamation suit of Rs 20 crore filed by the legislator who also sought permanent injunction against publishing any news about him related to it.

In her order on Monday, additional city civil and sessions judge Veena M Naikar restrained ten media houses including a social media company from ‘publishing, transmitting, displaying, distributing or in any manner permitting circulation of the articles, reports, videos etc, through internet or television or any other media till their appearance by way of Ad-interim Temporary Injunction.’ The MLA has also prayed that the defendants should remove or block the news articles published against him in their websites.

On May 5, Reddy along with BJP Bengaluru south MP Tejasvi Surya and another BJP MLA Ravi Subramanya went to a COVID war room set up by the Bengaluru civic agency and questioned the basis behind the appointment of people there.

During their visit, which was streamed live in a social media platform, Surya also sought to know why people from Muslim community were appointed there.Another person who accompanied them, sought to know whether the civic agency wanted to convert the war room into a ‘Madrassa’.

The civic agency (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) was the nodal agency to allocate beds in government hospitals as well as private hospitals, which were directed to reserve 80 per cent of beds under government quota for COVID treatment.