The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday issued a set of guidelines for media as well as investigation agencies while reporting in a case involving Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee and his family members.
Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, while hearing the case Rujira Banerjee Vs. Union of India & Ors, stated that the media, “while reporting news items, shall ensure that the reporting an information disseminated is objective, accurate able to be corroborated by concrete materials and sources”.
“All forms of media - print, visual, audio or otherwise - shall clearly delineate the slots/sections/print-space/web page which are designated specifically for news items and distinguish those from similar spaces which are designated for other articles, opinions and/or other literature,” the order said.
Rujira Banerjee, wife of Trinamool leader Abhishek Banerjee, had approached the Court seeking to restrain certain media houses from reporting the ongoing investigation in the school jobs-for-cash scam case. Ms. Banerjee alleged that a media trial was going against her and Mr. Banerjee by certain media organisations.
The Court directed that the media shall not publish or broadcast or telecast live video, audio/print footage of the process of search and seizure, raid or interrogation at any point of time. Justice Bhattacharyya also refrained the media from publishing “photographs of any person linking him/her to the investigation, in news items reporting about the said investigation or any facet of it”.
The guidelines laid by the Court for investigating agencies include that it shall not disclose to the public or the media the circumstances, reasons and/or details of the interrogation, raids and search of any particular person, be he/she an accused, a suspect of a witness before filing of a charge-sheet, the investigating agencies.
“The Investigating Agencies in general and the ED in particular shall not involve or be accompanied by media persons during any raid/interrogation, search and seizure procedure at any point of time and also shall not disclose prior information of such raids, interrogations, searches and seizures 36 before holding the same,” the order said.
According to the Court, these directions should be followed by the investigating agencies, in particular, the ED and all media houses, including the respondents herein, till January 15, 2024 or until further order, whichever is earlier.
Both Rujira Banerjee and her husband have been summoned by ED and Central Bureau of India in connection with the school job scam and the summons and their subsequent visits to the agency offices have evoked much media attention.
The Court, while stating that the writ petition was maintainable, observed that the question arises as to how far the right to privacy would override the right to freedom of speech and expression. Justice Bhattacharyya in the order cautioned that “if mainstream journalism converts itself to yellow journalism”, the dissemination of objective news is directly hampered. “The media has two-fold responsibility – to disseminate accurate information to the public at large and to stay afloat by weighing commercial viability,” the Judge said in the order.
