Hate show: Supreme Court says media can’t target one community

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday asked Zakat Foundation, an NGO which provides training to largely Muslims students aspiring for civil services, whether it wanted to intervene in the Sudarshan TV case following allegations of foreign funding from some terror-linked organisations to its Indian set-up.

A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra and K M Joseph told senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the Zakat Foundation, that the affidavit of Sudarshan TV has allegations of foreign funding against his client.

During the hearing, Sudarshan TV through senior advocate Shyam Divan said it will file an affidavit after the SC criticised it over its Bindas Bol show, which claimed a big expose on conspiracy to infiltrate Muslims in government service. 

The channel’s response came on a question by Justice Chandrachud, who asked what the channel plans to do to assuage apprehensions of the court over the content that was seen as incendiary. “We do not want to come in the way of journalism. We know as a court what happened during the Emergency. So we will ensure free speech and ideas. We don’t want to do censorship.

We are not the censor board... While we respect freedom of media, let this message to go to the media as well that any community shouldn’t become a target. Ultimately, we all exist as a nation, which must be cohesive and not against any community,” Justice Chandrachud said.

In a separate affidavit filed with the court, Sudarshan TV has said it has no ill-will against any community or any individual, and the programme concerns a matter of national interest. The case is slated for further hearing on Monday. ens