The Hindu : Sorabjee calls for amending contempt law

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 20, 2002

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Sorabjee calls for amending contempt law

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI March 19. Within a day of the Centre announcing in Parliament that it had no proposal to amend the Contempt of Courts Act, the Attorney General, Soli J. Sorabjee, has called for amending the contempt law to remove a serious anomaly that "truth is not a defence''.

Delivering the Rajendra Mathur memorial lecture on `Press, Politics and Judiciary', organised by the Editors Guild of India here today, Mr. Sorabjee said "rejection at the threshold of the plea of truth for proving the allegations operates as an unreasonable restriction on the freedom of expression and freedom of the press''.

Mr. Sorabjee said any person, including the press "is free to criticise a judgment, to comment on it pungently, severely, because the path of criticism is a public way'' without imputing motives to the judges.

The AG, however, said the threat of contempt "prevents exposure of misdeeds and corruption in the judiciary which regrettably is prevalent in some courts. Consequently, mediapersons succumb to self censorship and are deterred from exposing the misconduct of a few rotten eggs who tarnish the image of the judiciary and which is most unfair to the overwhelming majority of honest and conscientious judges''.

The Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Sushma Swaraj, who inaugurated the lecture, described Mathur as one who had laid high standards in journalism even while criticising the Government.

The President of the Guild, Mammen Mathew, who presided, said Mathur, who was the Editor of Nai Dunia and the then Navbharat Times could spur Hindi journalism into making leaps in professionalism.

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