Chennai, March 25: The Madras High Court today restrained about 40 private TV channels operating in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, including Sun TV Network, from telecasting any video clippings relating to Kalki Bhagawan, his son and other family members, till March 31.
The interim injunction was granted subject to certain conditions to protect the alleged victims as they had been projected in an identifiable manner, Justice G Rajasuriya observed. It would also amount to violation of human rights, the judge said.
The judge was passing interim orders on a civil suit filed by NKV Krishna, son of Vijayakumar alias Sri Kalki Bhagawan, in Shenoy Nagar, who prayed for a permanent injunction restraining the TV channels from, in any manner, telecasting or publishing untrue, defamatory material, totally unsubstantiated by facts and documents either by direct or indirect reference to him and his family members.
The judge said that Krishna and a competent person from the ashram should file affidavits highlighting, explaining and clarifying the scenes found in the video clippings.
Taking into consideration the importance of this case, the judge said that he was ordering issuance of notice to the State and the Central Governments, represented by the additional solicitor-general and the advocate-general respectively and they should appear in the court on March 31 when the matter would be taken up again.
Following a doubt raised by a counsel for one of the defendants as to whether this order throttled their right of broadcasting any news item (on the issue) as well, the judge clarified that the injunction pertained to the video clippings alone. The channels were at liberty to telecast any news items that were not defamatory.
In his suit, Krishna contended that he and his family members were put to great hardship and mental agony by the false, frivolous, concocted and baseless allegations aired by the defendant TV channels. The clippings, running for about 23 minutes, contained wild and unsubstantiated allegations purposely to defame the his family’s reputation, he said.
–Agencies