Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge at Bengaluru Vijay Kumar Rai, responsible for passing the interim media gag order in connection with the alleged Dharmasthala mass burial case, has requested that the matter be transferred to another court, after it was found that he is a former student of an educational institution headed by the Heggade family.
Justice Rai passed an interim order on July 18, directing the removal of 8,842 social media links and media coverage involved in the alleged Dharmasthala mass burial case. On August 1, the Karnataka High Court quashed the order.
The transfer request was made after a letter submitted by journalist Naveen Soorinje, who pointed out that Justice Rai studied in SDM Law College, run by the Dharmasthala Trust, headed by D Veerendra Heggade, who is the temple caretaker.
The journalist said that after completing his education there, Justice Rai kick-started his career by working as a junior lawyer at PP Hedge, a law firm known for representing Heggade.
The Principal City Civil Sessions Judge will decide which court will hear the case.
Dharmasthala controversy
The controversy erupted on July 3, when a former Dalit sanitation worker-turned-whistleblower alleged that he had been compelled to bury human remains, largely women’s bodies, washed up on the banks of the Nethravati river near the Karnataka temple. The witness was a Dalit man who said the burials took place over almost two decades, from 1995 to 2014. A case was lodged the next day, July 4.
The testimony, now under record in a magistrate’s court, triggered massive public outrage and compelled the Karnataka government to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the serious charges.
On July 31, the team recovered two human bones, suspected of a male, during the excavation of the sixth burial site on the third day.
In the latest round of digging, conducted at the ninth and tenth sites in the presence of the complainant, follows earlier exhumations at eight of the 15 sites marked along the Netravathi riverbank in a forested stretch beside the Ujire‑Dharmasthala–Kokkada highway.
