The Madras High Court has restrained print as well as electronic media from publishing or telecasting any material pertaining to the deposition of either the victims or other witnesses in the 2019 Pollachi sexual abuse case. It also has prohibited the media from publishing photographs or videos of the victims or the witnesses even in blurred or morphed forms.
Justice M. Dhandapani ordered that the media should also not publish any documentary or digital evidence that gets marked during the course of the ongoing trial in the sexual abuse case. “In essence, the print and electronic media are restrained from publishing any oral or documentary material connected with the trial of the case,” the judge clarified.
He also warned that any infraction by the media, with respect to the restraint order passed by the court, would entail severe action against the media house concerned and directed the High Court Registry to mark a copy of his order to the Press Council of India for being circulated among all the print and electronic media houses in the country.
The orders were passed on a sub-application taken out by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) complaining about Tamil magazine Nakheeran having reportedly published photographs of the sexual abuse victims and their depositions. The investigating agency feared that such publication would affect the trial and also the safety of the victims.
The sub-application was taken out in a bail petition, preferred by the eighth accused K. Arulanantham, which Justice Dhandapani had dismissed on August 11, 2021 and issued a slew of directions with respect to the manner in which the case must be handled by taking into consideration the enormity of the offence involving many women.
One of those directions was to conduct in-camera proceedings whenever the trial court felt that it was necessary to protect the witnesses and the other was to initiate departmental action against a Superintendent of Police who had divulged the names of the victims as well as the accused in the case to the media.
Then, the court did not issue any restraint order against the media since it had reposed faith and believed that it would conduct itself properly being mindful of its duty. The court also hoped that the media would understand the turmoil that the victims and their family members would have gone through in the aftermath of the offence committed against them.
“However, this court has been made to understand that its impressions are mere hallucinations and that the print and electronic media are not mortals to understand the implications of the act that they commit... and that they are merely guided by the ratings and the monetary considerations that fall out of the news they take to the palms of the citizenry,” the judge lamented.
He suo motu impleaded Nakheeran Publications as well as its Editor Nakheeran Gopal as respondents to the sub-application filed by CBI and called for an explanation from them by September 15.
