An injunction against 32 print, television and electronic news outlets was taken out by Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka R Ashoka for ‘false and defamatory’ reporting on his involvement in the Bagair Hukum land scam.

The list of media outlets includes the Times of India, The Hindu, Udayavani and Vijayavani, and also news channels like ETV News, Udaya News and Public TV.

The injunction comes on the same day the Anti-Corruption Bureau registered an FIR against Ashoka and others in connection with the Bagair Hukum case.

It prohibits media outlets from reporting derogatory or false news relating to ‘alleged illegal acts done during his tenure as the President of Bagair Hukum Regularisation Committee in the print and electronic media’.

The court order restrains media outlets from ‘making any sarcastic, defamatory remarks and using any indecent and unparliamentary remarks and opinions against the plaintiff in the news or broadcast’.

“The injunction is about the Bagair Hukum case. The case was quashed by the High Court years ago and they are reopening it now. R Ashoka has taken an injunction prohibiting media channels from reporting on the case,” said Prakash, a BJP spokesperson.

Bagair Hukum cultivators are farmers with no formal ownership rights to the government land they have occupied over the years. Lakhs of Bagair Hukum cultivators had applied seeking title deeds.

On November 2 last year, Congress workers demanded the recovery of 2,500 acres of land denotified and allotted to various beneficiaries in 75 villages of Bengaluru South Taluk by BJP leader R Ashoka when he was the Deputy Chief Minister and Chairman of Bagar Hukum Regularisation Committee.

They claimed that there were irregularities in the allotment of land titles to Bagair Hukum cultivators. The alleged irregularities took place between 1998 and 2006 when Ashoka headed the committee.