Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday ordered an interim stay on the the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into allegations of “multiple murders, rapes and burials” in the temple town of Dharmasthala, until November 12.
Justice Mohammad Nawaz passed the interim order on a petition filed by activists Girish Mattanavar, Mahesh Thimmarodi, Jayant T, and Vittal Gowda, who had earlier supported former sanitation worker C N Chinnaiah in filing a first complaint alleging multiple murders and burials in Dharmasthala.
The four had approached the court seeking to quash an FIR registered by the Dharmasthala police in connection with the case.
A controversy erupted after a complainant, later identified as Chinnaiah and arrested on charges of perjury, claimed burying a number of bodies, including those of women with signs of sexual assault, in Dharmasthala over a period of past two decades, with the implications pointing towards the administrators of the local temple.
The petitioners--prominent voices in the movement seeking justice for the 2012 rape-and-murder of a college girl had supported Chinnaiah’s allegations. However, they came under the SIT’s scrutiny after Chinnaiah presented a skull before a magistrate in July 2025.
The investigation team later found that Chinnaiah had not personally unearthed the skull, and issued repeated summonses to the four activists, suspecting they knew how it was obtained.
After receiving the tenth summons on October 24, the petitioners moved the High Court challenging both the summons and the FIR.
Advocate S Balan, representing them, said the petition questioned the legality of the procedures adopted by the SIT rather than the substance of the allegations.
Balan argued that the FIR filed under Section 211(a) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) violated procedural norms under Section 174(1)(i) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
According to him, since the statements made by Chinnaiah constituted a non-cognisable offence, the police should have referred the matter to a magistrate instead of proceeding directly with registration of an FIR.