Kathmandu District Court has issued an interim order directing media outlets and online platforms to stop publishing and broadcasting what it described as false, misleading and defamatory content against Reliance Spinning Mills.

The order was issued on Thursday by a bench of Judge Ramchandra Khadka in response to a petition filed by the company against Khagendra Raj Kandel, also known as Robin, and others. Reliance had sought a restraining order, alleging that text, audio, and video content had been produced and disseminated with the intent to damage the company’s reputation and that of its founders.

In the order, the court said that content circulated through platforms including Bizshala, Arthasanchaar, the Arthasanchaar YouTube channel and a YouTube channel operated under the name Tanka Dahal appeared, prima facie, to contain false, misleading and baseless allegations. These included unsubstantiated claims of policy corruption, institutional crime, financial terrorism and fraud.

The court has barred further publication or broadcast of such material and ordered that content already published not be further disseminated.

Reliance Spinning Mills is in the process of being listed on the Nepal Stock Exchange. The company issued shares worth Rs192.66 million, equivalent to 10.14 percent of its paid-up capital of Rs1.9 billion. Under the book-building method, 40 percent of the issued shares, or 770,640 units, were sold to qualified institutional investors at Rs912 per share.

The remaining 60 percent of the shares were allocated to the general public, Nepalis working abroad, mutual funds and company employees, in line with the book-building guidelines. After applying a 10 percent discount on the institutional cut-off price, the public issue price was fixed at Rs820.80 per share.

The initial public offering was managed by Global IME Capital. Shares were allotted through a lottery system, with a minimum of 50 units per successful applicant. A total of 21,807 applicants received shares, including 18,495 from the general public category and 2,311 from the foreign employment group, according to the issue manager.

Altogether, 574,692 applications were submitted across all categories, with total applications amounting to Rs25.11 billion.