News is perishable commodity,postponement of publication of court proceeding is not permissible

NEW DELHI: As Supreme Court Wednesday explored the option of postponing the publication of court proceedings in sensitive matters, including criminal cases, it was told that news was a perishable commodity which lost its value, if banned.

“We are not banning but are invoking the doctrine of postponement. It is a question of the timing” of the reporting of court proceedings, Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia told counsel Anup Bhambhani who appeared for News Broadcasters Association ( NBA).

While evaluating the option of postponing the publication of the court proceedings, the court indicated that it may frame guidelines as had been done in some specific cases. The postponement of the publication of the ongoing court proceedings in a case would amount to ban for a certain period thereby rendering it useless, Bhambhani told the apex court‘s constitutional bench of Chief Justice Kapadia, Justice D.K. Jain, Justice S.S. Nijjar, Justice R.P. Desai and Justice J.S. Khehar.

“News is a perishable commodity. If its publication is banned then it would lose its news value,” Bhambhani told the court adding that the “practical effect of what the court is contemplating would be something it had not even thought of”.

The court asked “can media analyse the evidence even before the court had done and prejudice the case of the accused facing trial”. The judges said this on an application by the Sahara India Real Estate Corp agitating its grievance over a news channel reporting its proposal made to the Securities and Exchange Board of India on securing the money it had mopped up from the market.

On an application by Sahara, the court said it would frame guidelines for reporting of sub-judice matters. Bhambhani said an accused facing trial in the 2G case could in future approach the court saying the media should be restrained from reporting the court proceedings in his case as it was affecting his business interest. “It (postponement) will open a Pandora’s box.”

He favoured putting in place guidelines as the broadcasters had already done for themselves under the stewardship of former chief justice J.S. Verma. Senior counsel Fali Nariman, appearing for Sahara, told the court that under Article 19 of the constitution people had a right to know and the right to be informed.

He said that live telecast of parliament proceedings were the satisfaction of the right to know and the right to be informed. Every citizen has a right to know what their elected representatives were doing in parliament even if they were staging a walkout, Nariman told the court, suggesting that the court proceedings could not be shielded from the people.

Addressing the court’s option of postponement of publication of court proceedings, Nariman said that there could not be any preventive relief.

He said that courts were not empowered to make such guidelines nor was there any statutory empowerment for then to do so. The court asked Nariman if he could suggest how to balance the freedom of press with the right of an accused facing trial. The court said that in Canada they do have some law and Ireland has guidelines that restrain one-sided reporting that causes prejudice to the accused

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Gutka chewing a misconduct, but does not warrant dismissal: HC

Chewing gutka is bad but not so serious a misconduct as to warrant the dismissalof a person from service, the Bombay High Court ruled while directing a clerk to be reinstated nearly 12 years after he was given the marching order.

The judges, however, observed that "unfortunately, there is a tendency among the service class to chew pan masala, tobacco, gutka or consume tea or coffee during office hours and such conduct is required to be deprecated".

A division bench of Justice P B Majmudar and Justice A P Bhangale of the Nagpur bench was hearing a plea filed by Shivdas Borkar challenging his dismissal from service in 2000 by the district and sessions judge, Nagpur, who is the disciplinary authority (DA). Borkar was a junior clerk in the court of civil judge (junior division) and judicial magistrate first class, Narkhed. On May 25, 1999, Borkar fished out a pouch of gutka from his pocket, tore it with his teeth and ate gutka in the presence of the presiding officer in the courtroom.

He was charged with serious misconduct, misbehaviour and insubordination. An enquiry officer's (EO) report to the DA said that seven out of nine charges, including Borkar issuing threats to the presiding officer in his reply to the show-cause notice, were proved against the staffer. On April 28, 2000, the appellate authority, Registrar High Court (Appellate side), upheld the dismissal.

Borkar's advocate I S Charlewar argued that at that time, Borkar, who had by then put in over nine years of service, was not in a proper frame of mind as his father and brother were seriously ill and that it was the only such incident in his service career. Senior advocate S V Manohar, appearing for the High Court administration, said there is no record to show that Borkar was habituated to eating ghutka but his conduct, as a clerk in the judiciary, should have been exemplary.

The judges held the DA had rightly accepted the EO's report and the only question to consider is whether the punishment is adequate or disproportionate to the charges proved.

On January 24, the judges observed that chewing of gutkha was a misconduct and

noted that Borkar had chewed gutka just once in his service career. "In our view,

The said misconduct of the petitioner is not such a serious one by which one chance could not have been given to him for improvement of his character," said the judges, adding, "Noted that unfortunately, there is a tendency in the service class to chew pan masala, tobacco, gutka or consume tea or coffee during office hours and such conduct is required to be deprecated. The employees must learn that they have to give 100% work during office hours, but it is unfortunate that government servants, during office hours, are found taking tea, coffee, pan, pan masala, etc. Such practice is to be deprecated and strict action needs to be takenn and corrective measures are necessary to be adopted with the object that they do not repeat such things in future."

They said charges of writing letter to presiding officer that he will file criminal and civil proceedings was out of frustration and also writing for providing additional cupboard is not serious insubordination. Concluding that the punishment is unduly harsh, the judges directed his reinstatement within a month.

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