A Bengaluru court has granted former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah an ex parte injunction restraining 42 media outlets and platforms from carrying two videos linking him to an alleged honey-trap network, and has directed the platforms to block them.
Bengaluru: The Bengaluru City Civil and Sessions Court has granted an ad-interim ex parte temporary injunction in a defamation suit filed by former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah against 42 defendants, restraining them from telecasting or disseminating two videos and directing the platform defendants to disable access to them [Siddaramaiah v. Freedom TV Kannada and Others].
The order was passed on Tuesday, October 13, by the XIX Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge, Smt. B. Pushpanjali, in O.S. No. 7655/2026. The plaintiff’s allegations are yet to be tested, the defendants have not been heard, and the court has expressed no view on the truth of the content or the merits of the suit.
The suit
The suit targets two videos, one uploaded to a YouTube channel on September 27 and the other aired by a Kannada news channel on October 2, 2026. The defendants include Freedom TV Kannada, the YouTube channel Karnataka Honey Trap, several Kannada and English newspapers and television channels, and platforms such as WhatsApp, YouTube LLC, Google India, Yahoo India and Facebook India. The content of the allegations is not repeated here because it is the very matter in dispute.
Siddaramaiah has denied the allegations, describing them as false and baseless. He seeks a permanent injunction and orders for removal of the content and disabling of access to it on digital platforms.
What the court said
On the material before it, the court held that the plaintiff had made out a prima facie case and that continued circulation would cause harm that money could not remedy:
Therefore, this Court is of the opinion that the plaintiff has made out prima facie case
will definitely cause immense damages to the dignity, status, position and reputation of the plaintiff
The directions
The court issued an ad-interim ex parte temporary injunction against the defendants, restraining them from causing the impugned videos or any portion of them to be telecast. The platform defendants, Nos. 28 to 32, were directed, insofar as applicable to their respective services, to forthwith disable access to and block the impugned videos and publications. The restraint operates until the next date, and the plaintiff must pay the process fee and furnish sufficient copies within the stipulated period, failing which the ex parte order stands automatically cancelled. The matter is posted to November 13 for summons.
Why the order matters
Ex parte takedown orders against the press are granted at the interim stage, before the defendants are heard, which makes the balance between reputation and free speech a live question once they appear. The order is ad-interim and will be revisited after the defendants respond.
The allegations in the videos are untested, the court has made no finding on them, and the plaintiff’s contentions are yet to be tried.
Case Title: Siddaramaiah v. Freedom TV Kannada and Others [O.S. No. 7655/2026]
Bench: Smt. B. Pushpanjali, XIX Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge, Bengaluru
Date of Order: October 13, 2026
Appearances: Senior Advocate Vikram Huilgol for the plaintiff; the suit was filed through Advocates Shathabish Shivanna and Praveen Kamath