Back
Front Page
Freedom of press, judiciary vital for preserving democratic values: Shah
Special Correspondent
| “Points of conflict should be avoided as far as possible” |
Chief Justice of the Madras High Court A.P. Shah at the inauguration of the academic programme at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai on Monday.
CHENNAI: It is essential to preserve the freedom of both the press and the judiciary, two of the most important indices of democracy, Madras High Court Chief Justice A.P. Shah told the 2008 batch of students at the Asian College of Journalism on the first day of their course on Monday.
Mr. Justice Shah, quoting the former Supreme Court judge, H.R. Khanna, said that it was essential that the two institutions should understand each other and appreciate their complementary role in the preservation of democratic values. Points of conflict between the two should be avoided as far as possible.
While freedom of the press was not specifically guaranteed as a fundamental right in the Constitution, in a series of decisions from 1950, the Supreme Court had ruled that this freedom was implicit in the guarantee of the freedom of speech and expression. It had also described this freedom as the “Ark of the Covenant of Democracy” and the “most precious of all the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution.”
The Chief Justice listed out several judgments in favour of freedom of the press. In the landmark Sakal Papers case, the Supreme Court had ruled that no legislation or executive action that interfered with the freedom of the press could hide behind the excuse that it sought to regulate the “business aspect” of a newspaper.
During the 1975 Emergency, when a sweeping order was issued to editors and publishers to submit all material intended for publication to an officially appointed Censor for clearance before publication, the Bombay High Court held: “It is not for the Censor to inject [into this] the lifelessness of forced conformity.”
On defamation, Mr. Justice Shah said libel laws could have a chilling effect on the freedom of the press. The Supreme Court had approved the principle laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and the House of Lords, that in libel actions by public officials, they must establish that the publication was made with reckless disregard for the truth.
On contempt of court
He said that an area that had been a source of friction between the press and the judiciary was the question of contempt of court. While judges were not immune to criticism either in respect of their judicial conduct or their conduct in a purely private capacity, it was altogether a different matter to impugn motives to their judgments, to accuse them of dishonesty or having been swayed by extraneous conditions.
Parliament, in response to several calls for reform of the Act, introduced the Contempt of Courts (amendment) Bill 2006. According to it, in proceedings for contempt of court, justification by truth would be a valid defence if it was in the public interest.
Another such area of friction was the issue of sub judice. A journalist might be liable for contempt of court if he published anything which might prejudice a fair trial.
Mr. Justice Shah said though the Asian College of Journalism was established only in 1999, it had over the years acquired the status of a premier institution of post-graduate journalism in India and South Asia. He wished the students of 2008 good luck. Sashi Kumar, chairman, Media Development Foundation (MDF), explained the key components of the PG diploma course, including the covering deprivation module which sensitised students to development issues.
N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, and trustee, MDF, in his introduction, highlighted some of the important contributions of the Chief Justice in the field of freedom of expression, environment laws, prison reform, Muslim womenR 17;s rights and disability laws.
© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu