The Bombay High Court on Monday held that media trial could lead to obstructing investigation and administration of justice, referring to the print and electronic coverage on the case of death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni passed a detailed judgement. It said, “While covering a suicide case, media houses should avoid - reconstructing crime scenes, interviews with potential witnesses, leaking sensitive and confidential information and to suggest that the person was of weak character.”
The court stated, “We have issued guidelines for print and electronic media regarding reporting of cases of death and suicide and made the guidelines by Press Council of India applicable to electronic media”.
The bench also held, “Some reporting by Republic TV and Times Now on Sushant Singh Rajput death case are prima facie contemptuous”.
The court was hearing a bunch of public interest litigation (PIL) petitions seeking a direction from the court to the authorities to issue guidelines to be followed by all media houses – print, television, radio, Internet to refrain from publishing any comments that may jeopardise the reputation of the police and may hinder the case.
One of the PILs has been filed by former Maharashtra DGPs M.N. Singh, P.S. Pasricha, D.K. Sivanandan, Sanjiv Dayal, Satish Mathur and K. Subramanyam, former Mumbai Police Commissioner Dhananjay Jadhav, and former additional DGP Krishipal Raghuvanshi.
Another PIL has been filed by film-maker Nilesh Navlakha; editor of a regional newspaper Mahibub D. Shaikh and retired civil servant Subhash Chander seeking a direction to ensure that news channels do not undertake a media trial that can prejudice the independent investigation being undertaken by CBI in the case.