Tejasvi Surya Sends Notice to Media Against ‘Derogatory’ Reports

BJP leader Tejasvi Surya was accused of assaulting a woman days after his nomination from Bangalore South LS seat.

Photo used for representation.

(Photo altered by The Quint)

In the aftermath of assault and MeToo allegations against Tejasvi Surya, BJP’s Bangalore South Lok Sabha candidate, he has filed a case against several media outlets, seeking to bar them from "publishing defamatory and derogatory publications" against him.

Surya’s lawyers have sent a legal notice, dated 29 March, to 45 news media organisations including The Times of India, The Indian Express, and Republic, in which he claims to have obtained an interim order from a court granting a temporary injunction against any reporting on the issue. The notice has also been sent to Whatsapp, Facebook, Youtube and Google.

He has not attached a copy of the the interim order, but has warned the respondents that “any violation of the interim order would render you (media outlets) liable for serious repercussions”.

The notice says that the next date of hearing is 25 May 2019, till when he claims the temporary injunction is in force. As this would have been an ex-parte order, the parties would not have known about Surya’s case, and have not yet had a chance to respond to his request for an injunction.

28-year-old Surya was fielded as the Lok Sabha candidate from Bangalore South – a constituency that was previously held by late Union Minister and BJP leader Ananth Kumar. His nomination generated resentment with BJP's state unit, as Surya was chosen over Kumar's widow, Tejaswini for the parliamentary seat.

‘Another MJ Akbar,’ Asks Congress

Days after his nomination, Congress’ Karnataka unit lashed out at Surya by citing allegations of 'abuse' by a woman against him and questioned the saffron party about his choice.

However, the BJP on 28 March trashed Congress' allegations against him, saying, "A nervous Congress is indulging in slander as it is afraid of its candidate (BK Hariprasad) will badly lose to the 28-year-old in the electoral battle.”

Tejasvi’s counsel Sudharshan Suresh, who said that such an injunction became necessary following the nature of news coverage about his client following his nomination, told The News Minute:

“There have been many defamatory and scandalous articles being published all over against him. So we had to get this injunction filed. There was news about him being a radical person, anything that would affect or tarnish his image within the right-thinking people in the society. That is just not done. Just after he filed his nomination, people started spreading canards about him.”

(With inputs from PTI and IANS)