A student newspaper has been handed a gagging order over a front-page story – by its own students’ union.

Edinburgh University’s student association (EUSA) was granted an interim interdict by a Scottish court banning the publication of an article which was scheduled to appear in The Student, in an apparent bid to stifle criticism over a legal row involving one of the union’s student officers.

The Student hit back with a front page piece accusing the union of “censorship” after they were forced to stop the presses when 4,000 copies had already been printed. The last-minute interdict – the Scottish equivalent of an injunction – meant they were unable to publish that week’s edition.

Nina Seale, one of the paper’s editors, said she was unable to discuss the details of the piece which had been due to run – but said the staff were all “very angry”.

“A lot of time and effort goes into every newspaper we publish and the union knows that,” said zoology student Nina, 19.

“We believe the story was in the public interest which is why we chose to run it. Now, we just have 4,000 papers sitting in our office.

“Not being able to put a paper out that week meant we had to push a lot of content into a bigger paper the following week – but a lot of our stories are time-sensitive which meant some couldn’t be run.”

The front page of The Student following an interdict issued by Edinburgh University Student Association

She said representatives from the paper had met with the union twice since the interdict was issued, but had not heard from them since the “censored” splash.

The paper, which is run by student journalists and funded by EUSA, was due to publish details of the suspension of Max Crema, vice-president of services at the union, who left the role in July under mysterious circumstances.

EUSA officials said he was out of the office “for personal reasons”. But, according to The Journal, The Student’s rival publication, Crema was formally suspended amid rumours of a soured relationship with the EUSA.

According to The Journal, the interdict, handed down by Lord Jones on 21 January, also forbids The Student from publishing “any material purporting to suggest that the pursuer is an organisation which is poorly governed and whose management are inexperienced and unaccountable”. The paper has also been ordered to pay EUSA’s legal costs, it has been reported.

The Journal has now published an editorial on the events, which reads: “It is a rare and slighty unsettling experience for us to find ourselves defending The Student, the University of Edinburgh’s student newspaper and our old rivals.

“Yet that is where we stand today, with the news that Edinburgh University Students’ Association have taken the dramatic, disgraceful and thoroughly illiberal step of dragging their own newspaper through the courts in a bid to suppress information about union governance and sordid internal politicking.”

EUSA was contacted by HTFP but has not yet commented.