In a significant verdict on a bunch of PILs cases relating to the Sushant Singh Rajput death cases, the Bombay High Court on Monday told the media houses “not to step out of their boundaries too and thereby enter the grey area beyond the proverbial Lakshman Rekha”.

Taking a strong exception to the questionable manner in which the media depicted the deceased and accused and  in the process created an atmosphere of “prejudice for both”, and tried to influence the investigations, a HC division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G. S. Kulkarni directed the media "to exercise restraint and refrain from printing/displaying any news item and/or initiating any discussion/debate/interview of the nature”.

In his ruling on a bunch of public interest litigations filed by a group of IPS officers and activists vis-à-vis the case relating to the high-voltage coverage on the circumstances leading to the death of  act Sushant in June 2020, the HC indirectly pulled up the media houses from holding “trials” and trying to influence the ongoing investigations.      

Among other things, the petitioners had sought the court’s intervention to frame guidelines to regulate the electronic media for reporting ongoing criminal investigations while safeguarding media freedom.

The HC bench prefaced its directive to the press and electronic media with the following observation: “The measures we would thus propose to remedy the ills that have so long remained unchecked for the lack of strict enforcement of the regulatory control mechanism, in whatever manner it is available on paper, as well as lack of proper understanding of the law of contempt of court and the procedures governing the criminal justice system, are intended to safeguard the dignity of an individual and his liberty - the basic philosophy of our Constitution”.

“We would do so, conscious of our own limitations of not crossing the boundaries, while urging the media houses. not to step out of their boundaries too and thereby enter the grey area beyond the proverbial ‘Lakshman Rekha’,” the HC bench said.

Among the directives that the HC bench gave to the media --- while reporting on the death by suicide to refrain from depicting the deceased as one having a weak character or intruding in any manner on the privacy of the deceased.

The Court asked the media to refrain prejudicing an ongoing inquiry/investigation by among other things: referring to the character of the accused/victim and creating an atmosphere of prejudice for both, holding interviews with the victim, the witnesses and/or any of their family members and displaying it on screen and analyzing versions of witnesses, whose evidence could be vital at the stage of trial.

The HC bench also directed the media to refrain from publishing a confession allegedly made to a police officer by an accused and trying to make the public believe that the same is a piece of evidence which is admissible before a Court and there is no reason for the Court not to act upon it, without letting the public know the nitty-gritty of the Evidence Act, 1872.

The other directives given to the media were to reform printing photographs of an accused and thereby facilitating his identification, criticizing the investigative agency based on half-baked information without proper research;  pronouncing on the merits of the case, including pre-judging the guilt or innocence qua an accused or an individual not yet wanted in a case, as the case may be;  recreating/reconstructing a crime scene and depicting how the accused committed the crime, predicting the proposed/future course of action including steps that ought to be taken in a particular direction to complete the investigation; and leaking sensitive and confidential information from materials collected by the investigating agency.

The judges also advised the electronic media not to act in any manner so as to violate the provisions of the Programme Code as prescribed under section 5 of the CTVN Act read with rule 6 of the CTVN Rules and thereby inviting contempt of court; and d. Indulging in character assassination of any individual and thereby mar his reputation.

“These are not intended to be exhaustive but indicative, and any report carried by the print media or a programme telecast by a TV channel, live or recorded, ought to be such so as to conform to the Programme Code, the norms of journalistic standards and the Code of Ethics and Broadcasting Regulations,” the judges said.