Subramanian Swamy questions foreign citizenship of The Hindu’s editor; Approaches Delhi High Court saying readers’ Fundamental Rights “prejudiced”

On May 8, 2013 a Division Bench of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice Jayant Nath issued notice in a Public Interest Litigation filed by Dr. Subramanian Swamy (Dr. Subramanian Swamy v. The Registrar, Office of Registrar for Newspapers of India, WP(c) 2986/2013) claiming that the foreign citizenship of The Hindu’s editor “prejudiced” the fundamental rights of the paper’s readers..Swamy’s plea is that the editor of a newspaper should be a citizen of India and not a foreign citizen. The Hindu editor against whom Swamy is making this claim is Siddharth Varadarajan, who is a U.S. citizen..Swamy, who appeared in person, argued that although Section 1 read with proviso to Section 5(8) of the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 only mandates the editor to be a person “ordinarily resident” in India, the pending Press and Registration of Books and Publications Bill, 2011 clearly requires the editor to be a citizen of India as well as an ordinary resident of the country. In his written submissions, Swamy has stated that since the protection of Article 19(1)(a) is only available to Indian citizens, “foreign citizen editors cannot act as fearlessly in safeguarding the citizens’ right to information” as Indian editors. He further contended that the readers’ Fundamental Right to Information and free expression would be prejudiced if the editor is a foreign citizen..He contended that an omission in the statute which is currently in force can be inferred by the Court and can be rectified by resorting to the Doctrine of ‘Casus Omissus’ since the new Bill for enactment introduced in 2011 in Parliament, is pending passage..Speaking to Bar & Bench, Swamy said that he was seeking an interpretation of the relevant provisions to the effect that editor should be an Indian citizen, as a foreign citizen cannot be expected to be committed to the security and integrity of India as required under Article 19(2) of the Constitution. “As a natural consequence, the editor of The Hindu newspaper would be removed”, he added..The Court after hearing the petitioner issued notice to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and the Registrar of Newspapers for India and posted the matter for July 24, 2013.