The Bombay High Court has issued notices to the Central government, the Law Commission and the Press Council in a third plea filed on Tuesday regarding the media coverage of actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.
The petition seeks “expanding the Contempt of Courts Act to include starting point of the pending proceedings in a case to be from the registration of FIR”.
The third public interest litigation (PIL) petition was filed by a registered trust, Pursuit of Justice. The petitioners call the “extent of media frenzy concerning all issues and non-issues involving the said incident is quite ‘disturbing’”. It says that this has given rise to an urgent need to find an acceptable constitutional balance between a free press and administration of justice.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G.S. Kulkarni issued notices and will hear all three matters on the media coverage of Rajput’s death together on October 8.
The latest petition seeks to expand the scope of the Contempt of Courts Act to include any publication which obstructs the administration of justice during the pendency of proceedings. It also calls for the registration of an FIR to be considered at the beginning of the case instead of the filing of the final report under Code of Criminal Procedure as of now.
The PIL quoted that the Law Commission in its 200th Report had also recommended that the starting point of the proceedings should be from the time a person is arrested instead of the filing of a charge sheet, as the provision postulates.
The plea goes to say, “The media, how so much ever, revered it is as the fourth pillar of democracy, does not enjoy unfettered, unrestricted and unbridled freedom of reporting which can impinge upon similar and other rights of the citizens. The recent, persistent and continuous reporting of the Sushant Singh Rajput case has blurred the line of fine and ethical reporting and irresponsible journalism, which has the propensity of setting up dangerous precedents in terms of demolishing and seriously impairing the faith and confidence of the people in the law and order machinery of the state.”
‘Irresponsible coverage’
The third petition adds that the irresponsible media coverage is a “serious violation of the constitutional protection guaranteed under Article 21 (Right to Life) concerning the rights of a person to a fair trial, the right to privacy of individuals being subjected to such roving public gaze facilitated by relentless media coverage, a serious violation of the privacy of a deceased person and depriving citizens of their right to receive unadulterated and accurate news as information instead of news as a form of entertainment”.