Hearing a 2020 criminal defamation complaint filed by Minister K J George, the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday issued strong remarks on media responsibility and sensationalism.

George had moved against Kannada Prabha Editor-in-Chief Ravi Hegde, Karnataka Rashtra Samithi president Ravi Krishna Reddy, and its general secretary N R Ramesh, accusing them of making “baseless, deliberate, reckless, malicious, and false allegations” through press statements and news coverage. 

The allegations were linked to a press release claiming a complaint had been lodged against George before the Enforcement Directorate, followed by a press conference reiterating those claims.

While hearing Hegde’s petition to quash the case, the bench observed that journalists wield significant influence—”Press people should understand, they are very powerful; they may not be making equal amounts of money, but they are very, very powerful; their words mean a lot. They can make or break things; it can hurt anybody like anything; they have to be careful. A hearsay statement should be like hearsay and should not be an assertion,” one of the judges on the bench noted orally. 

According to LiveLaw, Justice M I Arun orally said, “See press, you people are responsible; you create public opinion, and you can build nations. You should understand the potential you have. For a few TRP ratings, we are finding at times the destruction of the lives of persons. You can report that so-and-so had held a press conference and he said something like this, but you cannot give it the color that it is a fact.”

The court noted the role of TRP-driven reporting and proposed a way forward: “Issue an apology and we will quash it… give it equal publicity.”

Senior advocate K N Phanindra, representing George, argued that the stay order in this matter had stalled trial proceedings against the other accused. The case will next be heard on August 20, with the interim stay extended until then.