Image Source: livelaw.in
The Bombay High Court on Monday issued guidelines on what type of reporting by media leads to the 'Media Trial'. The court in its 251-page judgment on Nilesh Navalakha and others V Union of India and connected PILs observed that the media should present the facts which are in the public interest rather than in which public is interested and also avoid touching upon the ongoing investigations.
The guidelines issued by division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G.S. Kulkarni are:-
a. In relation to death by suicide, depicting the deceased as one
having a weak character or intruding in any manner on the
privacy of the deceased;
b. That causes prejudice to an ongoing inquiry/investigation by:
(i) Referring to the character of the accused/victim and
creating an atmosphere of prejudice for both;
(ii) Holding interviews with the victim, the witnesses and/or any
of their family members and displaying it on screen;
(iii) Analyzing versions of witnesses, whose evidence could be
vital at the stage of trial;
(iv) Publishing a confession allegedly made to a police officer by an accused and trying to make the public believe that the
same is a piece of evidence which is admissible before a
Court and there is no reason for the Court not to act upon
it, without letting the public know the nitty-gritty of the
Evidence Act, 1872;
(v) Printing photographs of an accused and thereby facilitating
his identification;
(vi) Criticizing the investigative agency based on half-baked
information without proper research;
(vii) Pronouncing on the merits of the case, including pre-judging
the guilt or innocence qua an accused or an individual not
yet wanted in a case, as the case may be;
(viii) Recreating/reconstructing a crime scene and depicting how
the accused committed the crime;
(ix) Predicting the proposed/future course of action including
steps that ought to be taken in a particular direction to
complete the investigation; and
(x) Leaking sensitive and confidential information from
materials collected by the investigating agency;
c. Acting in any manner so as to violate the provisions of the
Programme Code as prescribed under section 5 of the CTVN Act read with rule 6 of the CTVN Rules and thereby inviting contempt of court; and
d. Indulging in character assassination of any individual and thereby mar his reputation.
The bench also mentioned that the above guidelines are indicative but not exhaustive and any report carried by the print and electronic media needs to conform to the Programme Code, the norms of journalistic standards and the Code of Ethics and Broadcasting Regulation; in default thereof, apart from action that could be taken under the prevailing regulatory mechanism.
The erring media houses will make itself liable for the criminal contempt of court under section 2 (c) of Contempt of Courts Act. The judgment also mentioned that the reporting by Republic TV and Times Now in the SSR case were prime facie contemptuous.