The High Court of Karnataka on Friday stayed the criminal proceedings against D.K. Shivakumar, Deputy Chief Minister and president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), in a defamation case filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s State unit for issuing “defamatory” advertisements accusing the BJP government of corruption in mainstream newspapers during the campaign for the Legislative Assembly elections in 2023.
Justice S.R. Krishna Kumar passed the interim order on the petition filed by the KPCC and Mr. Shivakumar, who questioned the legality of the defamation case, in which the Congress leader has been arraigned as accused number 2. The BJP had lodged the complaint before the magistrate court in June 2023.
The court in January 2025 stayed the proceedings against Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, who has been arraigned as accused number 4 in the case.
It was alleged in the complaint that “false, baseless, and reckless” allegations were made under the title ‘Corruption rate card’ in the advertisements issued on May 5, 2023, in all the mainstream newspapers across Karnataka, terming the then BJP government as “40% sarkar” by falsely alleging that the government had “looted over ₹1,50,000 crore from the people of the State during its 2019-2023 regime”.