'We live in a free country': Supreme Court refuses to gag media from covering Dharmasthala case

The top court noted gag orders were passed only in extremely rare cases and asked the petitioner to place all materials before the trial court.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to consider a plea to restrain the publication of alleged defamatory reports in the Dharmasthala mass burial case, saying such gag orders are super injunctions and we will in a free country.

A bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal and Manmohan, however, directed a trial court in Karnataka to decide afresh the plea filed by the secretary of the Dharmasthala temple in this regard.

The court also expressed its discontent with a media gag in the matter, saying such orders are only passed in the rarest of rare cases.

“Gag orders are super injunctions. They stifle free speech. In this case there is one sanitation worker. If we pass a super injunction even his statement cannot be reported... we live in a free country," the bench said, taking an objection to a contention by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi on behalf of the petitioner.

The bench said let the matter be argued before the trial court and it can decide on the matter independently.

It was contended that if a judge is shown to be accepting money, what will happen to the institution?

The bench said, “These are all memes. We can ask them to pull it down. You’re right, there must be some limit to it”.

The court emphasised that it is not keen on a gag order.

"You show all this to the trial court. Let them apply their mind independently and decide," the court told Rohatgi, who while representing the temple administration, urged the court to grant some form of injunction.

Rohatgi also pointed out that news channels and social media were running defamatory reports, and produced some of alleged defamatory internet memes.

“Give me at least some injunction. One man moves the High Court. The law is, he who moves should get the benefit. How are 299 others (other media outlets, who were earlier subjected to the media gag) getting the benefit? The court may give some protection,” the bench said.

The court, however, said it is not keen to entertain this contention and ordered the trial court to decide on the temple administration's plea for an interim injunction afresh.

"We direct the trial court to decide the application within two weeks from the next day of hearing,” the bench said.

The court made it clear that any observations made by the High Court on August 1, 2025 should not influence the trial court while entertaining the application for stay afresh.

A plea was filed by the secretary, Dharmasthala Temple institutions, Harshendra Kumar D, challenging an order passed by the Karnataka High Court.

The High Court had quashed the media gag imposed by a Bengaluru civil court on YouTube channel Kudla Rampage regarding its reportage on the Dharmasthala mass burial case.

The case originated from the media coverage that followed serious allegations made by a former sanitation worker employed at the Dharmasthala Manjunathaswamy Temple. In a police complaint, he alleged that he had been forced by his supervisors to bury numerous bodies, including those of women, for nearly two decades.

The Bengaluru court issued the order on July 18 in a civil suit filed by Harshendra Kumar D, head of the Dharmasthala temple administration, demanding the removal of thousands of media links from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and news portals.

An FIR was filed earlier, based on whistleblower allegations of mass burials near Dharmasthala. A woman named Sujatha filed a complaint on July 15, alleging that her daughter Ananya Bhat had gone missing from Dharmasthala in 2003.

On July 19, the Karnataka government formed the Special Investigation Team to probe the allegations on the basis of media reports.