Ministers seeking court restraint on media not right: Sadananda Gowda

Bengaluru: State ministers' move to knock the doors of the court seeking to restrain the media from publishing or airing "defamatory" and unauthenticated" content against them, did not go down well with Union minister Sadananda Gowda.

He was of the opinion that when such accusations surface the ministers should cooperate with the investigation and they cannot ask the court to disallow the public from expressing their feelings. "It was not right to approach court on these silly and unnecessary matters," remarked Gowda.

The minister said that there could be possibility of things being twisted or morphed in a CD but he would wait for the investigation report to reach its conclusion. Gowda added that the party was embarrassed with the episode.

"The technology is so advanced that anything can be morphed or twisted. I am not saying everything is twisted. It is our responsibility to give importance to morality. Drawing political mileage out of the issue is not good. It will also hurt the administration," he said.

"When the central leadership asked for a report on the Jarkiholi Ramesh's CD issue, we gave information based on the details the media had. The national president and secretary had sought information from me on the night of the incident getting published in the media," Gowda said.

Shivram Hebbar, ST Somashekhar, Narayana Gowda, Bhairati Basavaraj, BC Patil and Dr Shriram Hebbar K. Sudhakar moved the court seeking injunction against media houses.