[Breaking] Bombay High Court to deliver judgment tomorrow in PILs against media trial in Sushant Singh Rajput case

The Bombay High Court will deliver its judgment on Monday in a batch of public interest litigation (PIL) petitions filed against media trial in the wake of the reportage relating to death of Bollywood actor, Sushant Singh Rajput case.The judgment will be rendered by Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni. The bench had reserved its judgment in the matters on November 6, 2020..The Court was approached by several pleas seeking the following prayers:directions to prominent television networks to restrict reportage that could hamper the investigation into the demise of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput.protest over some sections of the media maligning the image of the Mumbai Police through media trial.re-interpretation of contempt law so that publications made from the stage of filing an FIR in criminal cases may be subject to contempt liabilityframing guidelines to regulate the print or broadcast media without curtailing the freedom of the press..While issuing notice in one of the pleas, the Court had urged media channels to show restraint in reporting the Rajput case so as to avoid hampering the investigation..During the hearing which lasted for a month, the Court had heard submissions made by a slew of lawyers. .Senior Advocate Aspi Chinoy had opened the arguments for the petitioners. His primary contention was that while reporting or broadcasting a criminal proceeding, media channels are required to take utmost care to ensure that they do not suggest who should be arrested or who is guilty. .It was also his argument that the broadcasting federation associations such as the News Broadcasting Association (NBA) which the electronic media channels created to regulate themselves did not consist of every channel. Hence, regulating non-members was still an issue..Chinoy had clarified that he was not suggesting that there should not be any commentary or critical reporting. However, he emphasised that there should not be any interference with the administration of justice."You are no judge or jury to decide who should be investigated or hounded", he had submitted..Following Chinoy, Senior Advocate Devdutt Kamat had made his submissions in favour of the petitioners. His line of argument was that the Central government had abdicated its Constitutional responsibilities in confining to simply forwarding complaints made over media trial in the Sushant Singh Rajput case to "private, self-appointed" organisations such as the NBA..Kamat argued that airwaves are public property and private broadcaster were given licenses to use the same subject to their following the programme code which the broadcasters should not violate..He further stated that self-regulation should not be considered a substitute to statutory regulation as the private bodies representing themselves through the self-mechanisms could not be judges in their own cause..Appearing for the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh had informed the Court that the Union government was working on creating better mechanisms for non-members of the associations while securing the freedom of the press..He submitted that the High Court need not pass any guidelines as making a law is within the domain of the legislature. In the meantime there was an existing mechanism which was sufficient to keep a check and balance, it was contended. .Senior Advocate Arvind Datar appearing for the NBA submitted that no judicial intervention was required to issue guidelines for the electronic media as there was a functional self-regulation mechanism already in place. .Datar's argument was that NBA had guidelines in place to take action against errant members and such self-regulation model was accepted by the Supreme Court previously.He added that in the unlikely event of self-regulation mechanism failing, the Courts could always intervene under the common law of contempt. .News channels opposed the petitions by pointing out that there was no need for interference from the High Court as there already existed sufficient mechanisms and that they preferred self-regulatory mechanism over statutory mechanism..Senior Advocate Siddharth Bhatnagar appearing for the News Broadcasters Federation (NBF) submitted that a self-regulating mechanism was sufficient to regulate the media.He also pointed out that since the media will be reporting mostly against the government, it will be difficult to ensure fair reporting if the Government is an interested party. .Advocate Malvika Trivedi (Phoenix Legal) appearing for Republic TV channel highlighted that actual aggrieved persons had not come before the Court with petitions and the present petitioners were oscillating between media reportage and shortcomings of media regulation.She contended that State should not get to decide which news goes out, and which does not..Advocate Kunal Tandon appearing for Times Now channel submitted that in order to understand the news that is broadcast, the whole news should be seen and not just in piecemeal. He added that the 'Lakshman Rekha' that media was expected to follow was subjective and depended on the popular and unpopular views of the viewers..Advocate Ankit Lohia appearing for Zee News channel pointed out that there were two tiers of regulation mechanism - the self-regulating mechanism like NBA, NBF and government's ministerial committee. His contention was that courts were an additional checking mechanism which could be approached if and when the other two checks failed..Advocates Hetal Jobanputra for ABP News channel and Rajeev Panday for AajTak news channels informed the Court that news channels like theirs had willingly submitted to the NBA's mechanism..Advocates Alankar Kirpekar appearing for India Today news channel and Zeeshan Hashmi appearing for News Nation channel submitted that the jurisdiction of the NBA was never challenged by the channels, nor were there any complaints against the self-regulatory body..While extensively hearing all counsel, the Courts indicated that since the issue brought before them was unprecedented, they are in favour of issuing guidelines to curb media trial..Before reserving the matter for orders, the Court specifically asked all parties to address the court through their written submissions on the boundaries of their jurisdiction to issue guidelines.