Earlier, it was a tussle, sometimes visible in media, between Judiciary and legislature and now a new tussle has been emerged between Judiciary and media in the country. The pillars of Indian democracy have been involved in a struggle to check others to be remained in the limitation given by the Constitution of India.
This is a beautiful example of the ‘checks and balances’ phenomenon in Indian Democracy. For some political analysts, this struggle is good for the development of democracy in India. No institution should have the absolute power in the democracy and other powerful institutions have the power to check others, if others cross the limitation at any point of time.
In last week, the Delhi High Court had awarded 4 months’ imprisonment to four journalists from Mid-Day Delhi for contempt of court. The court sentenced four journalists for writing and publishing news reports against the former chief justice of India, YK Sabharwal. The Delhi HC also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 each. Later, the Supreme Court granted bail to all the four journalists.
The High Court had convicted four journalists, Mid-day City Editor M K Tayal, the then Publisher S K Akhtar, Resident Editor Vitusha Oberoi and cartoonist Irfan Khan for publishing the reports against former CJI Sabharwal. The HC Division Bench comprising Justice R S Sodhi and Justice B N Chaturvedi ordered to release the four journalists following the Supreme Court order.
Earlier, the Mid-Day eveninger in Delhi had published reports claiming that Sabharwal had issued orders for the sealing of lakhs of commercial establishments in New Delhi in 2006. At the same time, Sabharwal’s sons got into partnerships with shopping malls and Builders of commercial establishments in Delhi.
After the HC judgement, another debate has been raised in the country that ‘Who would decide the accountability of Judiciary. Some lawyers, media professionals and intellectuals raised objection against the Delhi HC decision against the Mid-day journalists.
Now, Social activists and educationists led by Arvind Kejriwal, Magsaysay award winner, have also issued a statement and criticized the Delhi High Court convicting four journalists of Mid-Day for contempt of court.
The statement says;
...Delhi High Court’s decision to convict Mid-Day journalists for publishing certain well-researched facts supported by suitable documents sends a strong signal to the rest of the country.
The decision wrongly indicates, especially to the media, that if anyone dares to speak, publish or publicly discuss any wrongdoing by any court or any judge, it would be treated as contempt of court.
The person who would dare to do that would be severely punished for that. We, the undersigned, consider this to be an assault on our freedom of speech and expression.
The people of the country have great confidence and faith in the judiciary that is actually created by the actions of the judiciary itself. Further, the public confidence in the judiciary cannot be established by chopping dissenting voices or exposure of misconduct. Such kind of misconducts, if done by all institutions in the country including the judiciary, should come out in public interest.
The exposure of the misconduct in any public institution would help to boost the reputation of that institution. It would send a clear message to public that the self-correcting mechanisms exist.
The intellectuals, who signed the statement along with Kejriwal, were Admiral H.C. Malhotra, Amit Bhaduri, Professor Arun Kumar, Professor Aruna Roy, A.B. De, Dr. Harsh Mander, Jaya Shrivastava, Jean Dreze, Prabhash Joshi, Rajendra Singh, Ramaswamy Iyer and Sandeep Pande.
