Telangana High Court Restrains Defamatory Content Against Union Minister's Son Bandi Bageerath In Rape Case

The Telangana High Court in an interim order has restrained over 50 news channels, media platforms as well as unknown persons from publishing, circulating and broadcasting allegedly defamatory, speculative, AI generated and unverified information pending investigation in a rape FIR against Bandi Sai Bageerath.

Bageerath, son of Minister of State for Home Affairs and BJP leader Bandi Sanjay Kumar, had moved the high court challenging allegedly defamatory publication against him. He has also moved several interim applications.

The first application seeks to restrain all the respondent media platforms, broadcasters, digital publishers, intermediaries, social media handles from publishing, broadcasting, telecasting, circulating, re-posting any fresh or further material concerning the Petitioner, his family members, the alleged victim and the pending investigation in the FIR particularly any material that declares the Petitioner guilty, conducts a media trial or a parallel investigation.

The second application seeks a dynamic injunction/John Doe/Ashok Kumar order restraining Respondent No.5 to 61 and all other unknown persons and channels from publishing defamatory material against the petitioner and seeks a direction to the intermediaries Google, Meta and X Corp to take down such content. 

The third application seeks to restrain the Respondents from publishing any speculative, sensational, prejudicial or premature discussion, debate, analysis, reconstruction or reporting on the  final report or charge-sheet that may be filed on completion of the investigation or on any statement, document or material forming part thereof, till the conclusion of the trial. 

The fourth application seeks immediate removal and blocking, pending disposal of the present writ petition, of the most egregious material already published, namely the morphed and artificial-intelligence-generated images of the Petitioner and his family members and the material disclosing or enabling the identification of the alleged victim.

The fifth application seeks direction to Google, Meta and X Corp to preserve all digital evidence, account information, subscriber details, metadata, URLs, upload history and related electronic records concerning the offending content and accounts pending disposal of the petition. 

Issuing notice on the main writ petition, Justice EV Venugopal in his order granting interim relief said:

"In view of the submissions of learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioner, on perusal of the decisions cited (supra 1 and 2) and the material available on record, the I.A.Nos.1, 3 to 5 of 2026 are allowed, as prayed for. 

Accordingly, I.A.No.2 of 2026 is allowed, restraining respondent No.5 to 61 and all other unknown persons and channels from committing the acts set out in the foregoing prayer and by granting an Injunction to the effect that upon the Petitioner or the Petitioner's advocates communicating to Respondent Nos.5 to 7 and the concerned intermediaries the particulars of any further or similar offending material of the nature described hereinabove, the said intermediaries shall forthwith remove, block or disable access to the same, with liberty to the Petitioner to apply to this Hon'ble Court in the event of any dispute or grey area concerning such material". 

The matter is next listed on November 5.