Conviction triggers campaign against contempt law

NEW DELHI: With the media movement against the court sentence to Mid Day journalists gathering momentum, the existing law of Contempt of Court is under sharp attack, especially for its provision against attempt to scandalise judges and tarnish the image of judiciary.

This provision is a legacy of the British system and should go is a widely prevailing feeling.
  
Moreover, the whole issue of corruption in judiciary and the need for reform in the system is again in the limelight with journalists up in arms against the punishment to Mid Day scribes.
  
The matter was hotly debated at the India Women's Press Corps and the Press Club of India.
  
The Delhi Union of Journalists and the Press Club also organized protest rallies at which journalists vowed to continue their struggle.
  
The message of the rallies was clear: Law of Contempt cannot be used to gag the media and the voice of truth.
  
The Delhi High Court had earlier this month awarded four months imprisonment to Mid Day reporters, editor and publisher for carrying out stories alleging former CJI Y K Sabharwal's orders on sealing were biased and were meant to influence the business of his sons, who had contacts with mall owners.
  
The contempt order has raised a serious issue of whether the judges, however corrupt they might be, should be allowed to go scot free and any attempt by the civil society to bring it to light through the Press should be prevented, well known Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan said at a discussion at the IWPC on Thursday.
  
The High Court's argument that by making allegations against former CJI, the Mid Day journalists had also tarnished the image of other judged was surprising and did not stand reason, said Mr Bhushan, who is the founder activist of the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reform.
  
The judicious step for the court would have been to institute an inquiry into the allegation against the former CJI before proceeding against the journalists.
  
It would be undemocratic if corruption in one wing of the system was allowed to go unquestioned, he added.
  
Mr Bhushan and secretary of the Bar Association Som Dutt sought to point out that the process of impeachment was so difficult that it never achieved any result.
  
First to initiate the impeachement process, one has to get the sign of 100 MPs, and no MP was willing to sign such a petition unless such allegations were adequately in the public domain, and if the media was not allowed to bring such issues up to the public then the question was who can do it, they said.
  
Criminal investigation too was almost an impossibility as for that permission of the CJI was required, which is never given, said the lawyers.
  
Mr Dutt said the country's judicial system was derived from Britain where the judiciary derived its authority from the King. He felt it was high time that the system was changed in keeping with the democractic and republican nature of the Indian system.

Judicial Commission should be urgently set up to take up cases of corruption against judges.
 
''In fact in this case Justice Sabharwal should have been first to inquire into the Mid day allegations, instead of defending himself,'' he said.
  
Mr Bhushan said the amendment in the contempt law making truth as defence was not sufficient.

''While the amendment was being debated we had told the Parliamentary Committee that this was not sufficient. You need to strike down the provision relating to scandalisation of judges, as any attempt to expose corruption in judiciary could be interpreted as an attempt to tarnish its image."

  
Legal correspondent of the Times of India Manoj Mitta also agreed with Mr Bhushan and Som Dutt that there should be an external agency to inquire into the charges of corruption against the judges as the inhouse inquiry was never transparent.
  
He also noted that the media had not been initially forthcoming in pursuing the story by Mid Day journalists and admitted that commercial considerations in today's market driven world had made the editors and managers too cautious.
  
Veteran journalist A Nihal Singh also felt that the market forces were having a stifling effect on the media and coming in the way of uniting for cause.
  
Last week the Pres Club of India also held a discussion on the freedom of the press at the end of which it passed a resolution vowing to fight all attempts to gag the media in the name of punishing the Contempt of Ccourt.
  
The speakers said the journalists would be guilty only if an independent inquiry against Justice Sabharwal found the allegations against him wrong.
 
''In fact the Mid Day journalists have only done their job by trying to bring out the truth in a case,'' they said.
  
They felt the contempt law should be amended to exclude healthy criticism of judiciary from contempt.
  
The meeting was addressed by English weekly Outlook Editor Vinod Mehta, Hindustan Times Delhi Chief of Bureau Vinod Sharma, CNN-IBN Editor in Chief Rajdeep Sardesai, Tehelka editor Shekhar Sen Thakur and its reporter Anirudh Bahel, Supreme Court Lawyer and human rights activist Prashant Bhushan, senior NDTV journalist Pankaj Pachauari and Press Club general secretary Pushpendra Kulshresht. The diuscussion was moderated by Press Club president Rahul Jalali.
  
The India Newspaper Society(INS) has also expressed concern over the High Court sentence to Mid Day journalists.
  
It said while it had the highest regard for judiciary, it would like to point out that members of the Press were duty bound by the codes and ethics of their profession to make public, facts and developments which may have significant impact on the well being of the society and the organs of the state- even if the publication has the effect of showing eminent public figures in an adverse light.