Karnataka High Court quashes BJP’s defamation case against Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar and KPCC

Extending the benefit of an earlier order that quashed the BJP’s defamation case against Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, the High Court of Karnataka has now quashed the defamation proceedings against Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, and the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) over the Congress’s advertisements in newspapers in May 2023 that alleged corruption in the then BJP government.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna allowed two criminal petitions filed by Mr. Siddaramaiah, Mr. Shivakumar, and the KPCC seeking quashing of proceedings pending before a special court in Bengaluru.

The court held that the three petitioners were entitled to the same relief granted earlier to Mr. Gandhi, against whom proceedings arising out of the same advertisement had already been quashed by a coordinate Bench of the High Court.

‘40% sarkar’ ad

The case was filed for issuing advertisements with “defamatory” imputation in mainstream newspapers during the campaign for the Assembly elections in 2023, describing the then BJP government as “40% sarkar” and alleging that it had “looted over ₹1,50,000 crore from the people of the State during its 2019-2023 regime”.

Justice Nagaprasanna relied on a February 2026 ruling in Mr. Gandhi’s petition, in which another single judge held that the advertisement alone did not establish the BJP as the aggrieved party, since the imputations were directed at the constitutional functionaries and not specifically at the BJP

The court further said that similarly placed accused cannot be subjected to criminal proceedings when the allegations against their co-accused, arising from the same incident, have already been quashed without any distinguishable reasons.

Solitary advertisement

“In the light of the issue being the same, evidence being the same and allegations being the same, all stemming from a solitary advertisement, the benefit that is granted to the co-accused [Mr. Gandhi] by quashment cannot be denied to these petitioners,” the court observed.

While Mr. Shivakumar was the president of the KPCC, Mr. Siddaramaiah was the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly when the case was registered against them on a complaint by the BJP.