The Supreme Court on Tuesday laid down a new doctrine that will allow courts to temporarily ban media from reporting a case if it could adversely affect a trial. The special constitutional bench of five judges, however, declined to create wider guidelines on how the media should report court cases.
In its 56-page judgement, the bench, headed by chief justice of India S.H. Kapadia, said that if publishing news related to a trial would “create a real and substantial risk of prejudice to the proper administration of justice or to the fairness of trial”, the court could grant a postponement order, temporarily gagging electronic or print media from reporting on it.
The judges wrote: “Anyone, be he an accused or an aggrieved person, who genuinely apprehends on the basis of the content of the publication and its effect, an infringement of his/her rights under Article 21 to a fair trial and all that it comprehends, would be entitled to approach an appropriate writ court and seek an order of postponement of the offending publication/broadcast or postponement of reporting of certain phases of the trial (including identity of the victim or the witness or the complainant).”
The court could grant such preventive relief after balancing the constitutional rights to a fair trial against freedom of speech, said the bench, keeping in mind that “such orders of postponement should be for short duration”.
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