NITHYANANDA COUNSEL FILES CONTEMPT OF COURT AGAINST SUVARNA NEWS CHANNEL

NITHYANANDA COUNSEL FILES CONTEMPT OF COURT AGAINST SUVARNA NEWS CHANNEL

Today (5 June 2012), Nithyananda’s counsel filed a contempt of court petition against Suvarna Kannada News Channel at the High Court of Karnataka for disobedience of the injunction order restraining the channel from telecasting anything on Nithyananda which is sub-judice or defamatory in nature.  

The contempt petition is in response to the persistent and malicious telecast by Suvarna from 3 June 2012 onwards of a woman who identified herself as ‘Aarti Rao’ and accused Nithyananda of sexually abusing her for 5 years between 2005 and 2010. The program was telecast once on 3^rd June and twice on 4^th June. It was followed by a spate of panel discussions and public opinion deliberately planned by Suvarna. On its third day today (5^th June), Suvarna went to the extent of bringing around 20 women to the gates of the Bangalore ashram and made them demonstrate and called it a dharna by ‘women’s organizations’. 

It is to be noted that on 2nd April 2012, a Bangalore City Civil Court passed an interim injunction order against 9 media houses including TV9, Survarna 24x7, Kasthuri, Udaya, Janashri, Public TV, E TV, Samaya 24x7 and News 9 restraining them from exhibiting, broadcasting or telecasting of programmes, reports, clippings or visuals referring to Nithyananda in a false or derogatory manner. 

Compelled to avail of an injunction order to stop this gross misuse of the freedom of press, Nithyananda’s counsel has again been pushed to file a contempt of court petition seeking serious action against this gross disobedience of a court order. 

Nithyananda’s counsel submitted that even though the interim order of the court is within the knowledge of the TV channel, and  when the interim order was still in operation willfully, the channel is intentionally and deliberately disobeying the order by telecasting/broadcasting the continuous spate of programmes (which still continues) with an intention to ignite malicious propaganda about Nithyananda.

The petition has been numbered and posted for hearing tomorrow (6 June 2012).