Gujarat chief justice suggests ‘restriction’ on media coverage.
Slamming exaggerated coverage of specific cases by media, chief justice of the Gujarat high court has said that the ‘media trial’ affects the judiciary. He suggested restriction on such kind of media coverage - either by a self-imposed code of conduct or through the legislature.
Chief justice KS Radhakrishnan was delivering a speech at the inauguration session of the first media and law training programme at Town hall in Gandhinagar. The three-day programme was organised by Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) for mediapersons.
“Freedom of speech is well established in the fundamental rights in Indian constitution. It also generates strong public opinion,” said Justice Radhakrishnan.
“On the issue of declaration of judges’ assets, supreme court succumbed to public opinion largely formed by a media campaign and decided to declare assets even before the Delhi high court was to deliver its verdict on the issue,” he said, adding, “It is an example of how powerful the media is.”
“It is important for the media to look at how it impacts the public opinion,” Justice Radhakrishnan said. “The trial by media affects court proceeding, the accused, victims and also the witnesses. Publishing profile and photograph of the accused is akin to humiliating them as well as their family members,” the judge said.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitely, however, opined that imposing restriction on media in this age of advancing technology can not be effective. To buttress his point, Jaitely said, “Once I was arguing in a case of intellectual property rights and some little-known website in the US was reporting the proceedings on daily basis. I was never able to find who was reporting the case every day.”
In this situation, Jaitely, a veteran lawyer, said, “The age of censorship is gone and regulations are no longer effective. We have become a media-driven society.”
Bimal Patel, director of GNLU, said, “We have organised such a programme for first time and hope it will become instrumental in development of society by media.”
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