Editors Guild expresses grave concern over Meghalaya HC notice to The Shillong Times editor over report on judges allegedly granting themselves benefits.
New Delhi: The Editors Guild of India has come out strongly in support of The Shillong Times — the oldest daily of the Northeast — after its editor Patricia Mukhim was issued a show cause notice and summoned by the Meghalaya High Court over a report on how judges of the court had allegedly granted themselves and their families multiple facilities and benefits.
“The Editors Guild of India has expressed grave concern over the manner in which the Meghalaya High Court has issued a show-cause notice to the editor and publisher of The Shillong Times asking them why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them for carrying a report on how the judges of the Court have granted themselves and their families many facilities and benefits,” a statement issued by the guild said, adding that such contempt notices will be seen as judicial intimidation of the media.
“It is unfortunate that an editor has been summoned by the Meghalaya High Court for what appears to be a factual news report,” the guild’s statement said.
The guild also urged the court to take the necessary steps to ensure that the spirit of unbiased and independent functioning of both the judiciary and the media is upheld.
Judges, who have broad shoulders and are tolerant of criticism, are the need of the hour, the guild said.
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The report and the court order
On 10 December, the newspaper published a report titled When judges judge for themselves, in which it said that a recent order passed by Judge S.R. Sen called for improving facilities for retired judges and their families.
The Meghalaya HC judge, who was recently in the news for suggesting that India should have been a Hindu country, then summoned editor Mukhim.
Mukhim appeared in Sen’s court Thursday.
According to the news website Scroll, people present in the court Thursday morning said that Sen was visibly indignant. “After questioning Mukhim about her credentials, Sen apparently trained his gun on the publishers,” the website report said, adding that the judge asked them why they were “appointing such kind of editors?”
According to the website, Sen retires next March.