After days of hearing, the Bombay High Court on Friday reserved the judgment in matters seeking restraint on the media from covering the case of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni was hearing a bunch of public interest litigation petitions. One of them, filed by film- maker Nilesh Navlakha, editor of a regional newspaper Mahibub D. Shaikh and retired civil servant Subhash Chander, seeks a direction to news channels to ensure no media trial that has the impact of prejudicing the independent investigation being undertaken by CBI in the case.
Another plea is filed by former directors general of police Parvinder Parsicha, D. Shivanandan, Sanjeev Dayal, Satish Mathur and K. Subramanyam, ex-commissioners of police M.N. Singh and Dhananjay Jadhav and additional DGP Krishipal Raghuvanshi. Their PIL was against the ‘unfair, malicious and false’ media campaign against the Mumbai Police in the death of Sushant, represented by senior advocate Milind Sathe. The others are filed by, a party-in-person, named Asim Suhas Sarode; an NGO named ‘In Pursuit of Justice’; and by Prerna Virendrakumar Arora.
On Friday, the Bench heard arguments by Senior Advocate Aspi Chinoy, representing concerns of the former police officials; Assistant Solicitor General of India Anil Singh, Senior Advocate Arvind Datar for the News Broadcasters Federation.
The bench had made observations like, “We would not like the media to cross it boundaries and we would also like to be within our boundaries.” “Media has fundamental right to freedom. But that cannot be used to infringe the rights of others. This cannot go unregulated For print media there is Press Council of India, for cinemas there is a censor board. In a case where the media crosses the ‘Lakshman Rekha’, it is for Parliament to step in. Why should the court do it?”
Once a court reserves a judgment, it can take upto three months to deliver it.