Journalists Ravi Belagere and Anil Raj, editors of two city-based tabloids, who were accused of publishing defamatory articles against politicians in Karnataka are likely to be arrested soon.

The arrest is not in response to a legal defamation case, but is the result of an order the state legislative assembly first passed in June this year, and upheld on Tuesday. At the on-going winter session of the assembly, on November 21, legislators discussed the formal request from Raj and Belagere to undo the arrest order. There was astounding unity of opinion: a majority of MLAs across parties, including those whom the journalists have exposed in their stories, rejected the journalists’ plea. This leaves them likely to be arrested anytime.

A day after the Assembly’s call for arrest, Anil Raj, the editor of news tabloid Yelahanka Voice, spoke to this reporter saying that he believed justice would be done to those who were in the right. “I am willing to get arrested,” he said. “If I am right, which I know I am, I will get justice. Let the courts decide which side is correct.”

The same optimism was expressed by those at Hai Bangalore, the Kannada weekly headed by Ravi Belagere, popular in the region for a tongue-in-cheek, bold rhetoric in his blogs and opinion pieces. While Belagere was unavailable for comment, the chief reporter of the tabloid, Lokesh Koppad, confirmed to 101Reporters that Belagere had heard about the quashing of the reconsideration application last night. “He said he is open to being arrested as he has firm faith in our judicial system. He said that it had now become an ego battle for those in power. They only want to see a journalist behind bars,” said Koppad.

On June 21, the Karnataka Legislative Assembly approved the recommendations of the privileges committee and passed an order sentencing Raj and Belagere to year-long imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000 each. The cmmittee had alleged that the journalists published “defamatory articles” about three MLAs – BM Nagaraj of the Congress, SR Vishwanath from the BJP, and Speaker KB Koliwad, who’s from the Congress too – and recommended their arrest. The Speaker, who happens to head the committee, approved the recommendation.

Soon after, police teams set out to arrest the journalists. They managed to somehow evade arrest – Raj went into hiding, and Belagere was in a hospital for an illness. Meanwhile, following media outrage about the sweeping order against journalists, their arrest was put on hold within a week. The duo then filed a “reconsideration application” before the Speaker of the Assembly.

At the winter session in Belagavi, only three MLAs argued against the arrest order, while a majority approved of the penalty. Some even wanted the punishment doubled. There were no disagreements along party lines, with most legislators expressing a strong desire to “regulate the media” and “prevent sensationalism”.

The alleged defamatory articles were published in the tabloids in 2014. In Yelahanka Voice, which often focuses on civic issues in the Yelahanka neighbourhood of Bengaluru, Raj wrote about the local BJP MLA SR Vishwanath’s goons creating mayhem and spreading fear in the area. Belagere published three stories in Hai Bangalore highlighting the “corrupt practices” of Siraguppa MLA Nagaraj and then MLA, and now Speaker, Koliwad.

It’s hard to miss the conflict of interest in MLAs deciding on the punishments of journalists who’re exposing their alleged misdeeds. And it’s harder to miss the Speaker’s repeated appearance in this attempt to muzzle free press. Not only is his alleged corruption the subject of one of Belagere’s articles in Hai Bangalore, but this is also his second attempt to put the journalist in the dock.

The Hai Bangalore articles were published when Koliwad was an MLA, and he had complained to the then Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa, calling it “a breach of privileges of a member of the assembly”. Thimmappa had moved the complaint to the privileges committee, but the Speaker’s term ended before a conclusion was reached. The topic re-emerged after Koliwad became Speaker.

Senior journalists have heavily criticised Koliwad hearing a complaint against himself. Shankarappa, the journalists’ lawyer, said, “How can you be a judge in your own case? This is unheard of anywhere. But our Assembly has done it.” He said that they would be approaching the high court to challenge the recent order of the assembly.

Journalist KS Dakshina Murthy said that such an assembly decision was unprecedented. “Earlier, an apology would suffice,” he said. “Unlike other state assemblies, Karnataka had always maintained a soft stand about journalists and media reports, and was even liberal when compared to Tamil Nadu. But this trend indicates deteriorating relations between the media and the state.”

Nevertheless, he maintained that no witch-hunt could keep journalists away from reporting fact-based stories. “As long as your story has enough evidence to back you up, this incident won’t affect those articles with actual reportage,” he said.

That seems to be the attitude at Hai Bangalore too. When asked about reports about the weekly closing down, Koppad said, “We are running as we were doing earlier. There is no question of shutting down the paper.”

(Nivedita Niranjankumar is a Bengaluru-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)