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Don't release confessional statement to media: High court to police

A division bench of chief justice AP Shah and justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw also suggested the police do not to pose the accused persons before the media soon after their arrest.

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The Delhi high court today suggested that the city police should not release the confessional statement of an accused to the media before filing the chargesheet in a criminal case.

Directing the police to amend its draft guidelines over police-media interaction, a division bench of chief justice AP Shah and justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw also suggested the police do not to pose the accused persons before the media soon after their arrest.

The bench also asked the police to restrain itself from giving any opinion about the accused person as to whether he or she was guilty of offence or not.

Filing the draft guidelines earlier, YS Dadwal, Delhi police commissioner, said investigators should not divulge the modus operandi of major operations to newspersons while attempting to nab criminals and terrorists.

"When major operations are launched to nab criminals, terrorists, the modus operandi of such operations should not be divulged to the media...", the guidelines said.

They also proposed that the media should not release the names of suspects until his arrest or express any opinion over the merit of the case.

The media should not reveal the identity of the victims of the sex offences and informations on child abuse and juvenile cases, it said.

The bench was hearing a PIL filed by an NGO, Act Now For Harmony and Democracy, seeking a direction to the government for media-coverage related guidelines alleging a news channel had reported the confessional statements of suspected errorists  before the police filed them in a court in September 2008.

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