Six Karnataka ministers move court to restrain media

Bengaluru: Six Karnataka ministers have moved a Bangaluru court here seeking to restrain media organisations from publishing or airing any “defamatory or unauthenticated” material against them.

The six ministers of Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa-led government who moved the court Friday include Labour Minister Shivaram Hebbar, Agriculture Minister BC Patil, Cooperative Minister ST Somashekar and Health, Family Welfare and Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar.

The two others are Youth Empowerment and Sports Minister KC Narayana Gowda and Urban Development Minister Bhyrathi Basavaraj.

After hearing their joint plea, the additional city civil sessions judge reserved his order which is expected to be delivered on Saturday.

The six ministers are among the 17 MLAs who had rebelled against the Congress-JD(S) coalition government, leading to its fall in July 2019 and paving way for the BJP to come to power.

Disqualified from their respective parties Congress and JDS, the MLAs had subsequently joined the BJP, contested bypolls in December 2019 on BJP tickets and were made ministers after winning the polls.

Ramesh Jarkiholi, who recently resigned as a minister amid allegations of sexual harassment after the emergence of a sleaze CD, had also defected to the BJP along with 16 MLAs and had become a minister.

Confirming the ministers’ step of approaching the court, Family Welfare and Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar, in a series of tweets, the ministers moved the court amid apprehensions of a political conspiracy being hatched to defame some “honestly working” ministers.