BENGALURU:  The Karnataka High Court has said that the electronic media should ensure that no part of the stand taken by the state government or orders passed by this court should be misinterpreted or misquoted.“We are dealing with various sensitive issues concerning COVID-19. We want to make it clear that while reporting our orders, the media and the electronic media in particular, has to be very careful,” a division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice B V Nagarathna said.

The bench said that in the written submission filed by the state government, it was pointed out that the submission of the state government made in the order dated April 9, 2020, was misrepresented by the media.In response to the direction issued by the court with regard to the preparedness to combat COVID-19, the government had responded by pointing out the kind of infrastructure required for dealing with 10,000 COVID patients. This written statement did not mean that the number of positive cases will rise to 10,000 by the end of April 2020, the bench said.

“The electronic media must note that if there is no accurate reporting of the proceedings before the High Court, the stand of the state government and other agencies, it may create confusion amongst citizens and may spread panic,” the bench said.The bench said, “We hope and trust that the media will avoid all this.”