A Delhi court Magistrate Ajay Pandey remanded Prakash Singh, the reporter of news channel Live India, to judicial custody for seven days for his role in the sting operation against a school teacher aired last week. Prakash will be in the judicial custody till September 15.
Earlier, Delhi Police Crime Branch had arrested Prakash Singh on Friday. The crime branch had booked him different sections of Indian Penal Code such as related to cheating and criminal conspiracy.
On Saturday, the crime branch urged the court to present Prakash singh in the court on Monday to meet head-on him with Uma Khurana, the school teacher. Later, the court accepted the police demand.
According to the report, the Delhi Police crime branch of Delhi Police has arrested the girl, who had been posed as a schoolgirl being offered by the teacher to a client. The police have found that the girl was actually a journalist and was a part of the whole drama to frame the teacher for money.
The police have revealed after watching the entire unedited tapes of the ’sting operation’ that how the reporter, Prakash Singh and the female journalist, who was posed as school girl, framed the school teacher Uma Khurana. The real victim in the whole episode actually was Uma Khurana. The girl, who was appeared as school student against Khurana, was actually an aspiring journalist.
On Friday, the Delhi High Court had issued notices to the Delhi government and police by taking suo motu cognisance of media reports, which claimed that the sting operation was fake and distorted.
The Delhi High Court bench comprising Chief Justice M K Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Khanna ordered the government and the Delhi Police to submit their report on this matter by Monday.
The HC Bench, however, refused to issue notice to the TV channel by saying that this is the duty of the government and the police to file the report first in this matter.
On the other hand, government and Opposition sought some kind of regulation on the media. The Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi has taken a serious note on the whole drama and warned TV channels of possible action if they would use unfair means to get high TRPs.
He said:
Some channels just want to sensationalise news to gain TRPs. We will take action against them and the issue will be discussed.
Senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, who is also a former I&B Minister, said:
This is not the matter of sting operations alone. There should be a wide-ranging discussion on the mode of regulation and the regulator; on what all issues media should be held responsible.
CPI secretary D Raja said:
Sting operations should not be banned. Sting operations are needed to bring out certain hidden things. But some times they are proved to be wrong and for wrong reasons. So there must be some regulations.
Has the media been transformed in a tool to brand a person a criminal by exposing him or her to open dishonor and violence?
Comments
you are doing a commendable job. What the said news channel has done in the name of “sting operation” is a blot on journalistic ethic. This episode has irreparably tarnished the image of media in public eye and has raised serious questions about its credence as a pillar of democracy.
There is a dictum that freedom always comes with responsibility. To acquire freedom is to bear moral responsibility. A normative question that agitates our mind is, if freedom is prior to dignity. Can ‘A’, in his/her mindless pursuit of freedom, be allowed to invade and damage ‘B’s dignity? This question acquires rather more normative importance in the sense that the said incident amounts to an institutionalized attempt to damage and erode one’s dignity. Media is an institution and it enjoys freedom as an institution. Its reports and visuals sometimes create public hysteria because they are hailed with credibility. But what Uma khurana would have gone through by suffering at the hands of public hysteria is beyond imagination. Her perceived loss of dignity is beyond reparation. The point that I want to make is that the perceived loss of dignity is more painful than the loss of freedom. The uma khurana incident makes a perfect case for the state to step in and contemplate legislative measures so that institutional freedom, like the one enjoyed by the media, is always accompanied by a corresponding sense of responsibility.
A very serious side of institutional freedom being exercised by media is that it monopolizes the regulation and dissemination of information. What is worrisome to see is that most of the channels are driven by crude commercial interests even at the perils of professional ethics. Informations are disseminated in such a way as to augment the commercial interest of the channel to the maximum. The other side of the story is often neglected if it doesn’t have capacity to generate much of TRP or if it doest not suit the ‘social self-interest’ and commercial interest. Consequently people develop a conjectured public opinion. Technological control by the media of means and devices of creating and disseminating idea in a selective manner is a dangerous development for the health of our society and polity. If such a rotten state of affairs continues, I m afraid, we are going to witness a spate of what I would phrase “media absolutism”. By the incident like this one, what generally happens is that our trust in the media, as an institution of credence, becomes the first casualty. In the end, I wish to make it clear that I should not be construed as if I am arguing for a case of censorship by curbing the freedom of media. My only concern is that media should realize its role in the making of an informed citizenry and thereby in the deepening of democracy. It would be praiseworthy if media becomes a ‘responsible media’ by being self-critical and ‘self-corrective’, else it would be contingent upon the state to contemplate some legislative measures to do the same.
Rahul, You are absolutely right in your comment. Your voice is just the reflection of frustration rising inside a common Indian who expect a lot of responsible acts from the Press in India. The ’Press’ has been changed in ’media’ and the electronic media is creating a pseudo-concept that they are the real journalists because they have the power of camera to present the truth as it is. According to my view, the intentions in the brain working behind the camera should be constructive. If it is not, then camera would lie all the time. The nation saw an example of that.
I had read in the political science books in college days.. Power corrupts...absolute power corrupts absolutely.. You said almost the same thing here as..freedom always comes with responsibility. To acquire freedom is to bear moral responsibility.. A very serious side of institutional freedom being exercised by media is that it monopolizes the regulation and dissemination of information. You are very much correct here.
There should be some restriction on such media houses to restrict the very serious side of institutional freedom being exercised by media is that it monopolizes the regulation and dissemination of information.
Another conscious citizen wrote me in a personal mail to me as...there are lot of people who become myopic when their self interest is involve and hence we do need code of conduct in every sphere of life........otherwise there will be chaos in the civil society.
This is nothing but a rising public outrage against the misuse of constitutional right of freedom of speech and expression by some business-minded people in the name of journalism.