Evolve mechanism to address grievances against media: Supreme Court to Centre

The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, asked the Central government to evolve a mechanism to deal with complaints against media, expressing dissatisfaction at the reply filed by Central government in a petition alleging biased and communal reporting of the Tablighi Jamaat incident. .No need for CBI Probe into Tablighi Jamaat Nizamuddin Markaz event: Centre tells Supreme Court.A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India, SA Bobde stated that the affidavit filed by the Centre was silent on the applicability of the Cable TV Networks Regulation Act and the mechanism adopted by the Centre to address such grievances and complaints against media. .The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, in its affidavit filed on November 13, had informed the Supreme Court that the petition against communal reporting of Tablighi Jamaat incident was based on "vague assertions" and news reports published by certain fact check websites, and the same cannot be relied upon to contend that entire media was spreading communal disharmony. .Communalisation of Tablighi Jamaat: "Freedom of Speech is one of the most abused freedoms in recent times", CJI Bobde observes."First you did not file a proper affidavit and then you filed an affidavit which did not deal with the two important questions. It cannot be done this way Mr Mehta (Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who was representing the Central government). You have to tell us how you have acted under Cable TV Act in some prior incident,"CJI SA Bobde said.The top court further asked the Centre why a "private body" like the News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) should look into complaints against media. ."We want to know the mechanism employed by you and this affidavit has nothing on it. Why should we refer to NBSA etc when you have the authority to look into it. If it does not exist then you create an authority else we will hand it over to an outside agency,"the CJI said. .However, the Solicitor-General maintained that NBSA was a self regulatory body. .The Bench which also comprised Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian asked the Centre to file a reply incorporating all the aspects raised by the court and posted the case for further hearing after three weeks. .The plea filed by Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind and the secretary of its legal cell, through lawyer Ejaz Maqbool, had contended that the unfortunate incident of the Tablighi Jamaat was being used to “demonise” and blame the entire Muslim community.At least 9,000 people had participated in the religious gathering at Tablighi Jamaat’s headquarters in Nizamuddin West in March this year.The congregation became a key source for the spread of COVID-19 in India as many of the participants travelled to various parts of the country after the event..This also led to news reports by certain television news channels blaming the Muslim community for the incident and attributing motives to them alleging that it was a deliberate attempt to spread Covid-19 in India. .The plea before the Supreme Court sought directions to the Centre to stop dissemination of fake news and take strict action against the section of the media spreading bigotry and communal hatred in relation to the incident.In addition to this, there are several fake reports and videos circulating on social media showing Muslims in bad light, the plea contended..The Central government had earlier filed an affidavit in the matter but the top court had objected to the same stating that it was filed by a junior officer and was not satisfactory. It had then directed the centre to file a fresh affidavit while also asking it to clarify whether or not it had power to ban television channels.