New Delhi: Just after midnight on 25 June, 1975, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, a road in Central Delhi dotted with the offices of leading Indian newspapers, went dark. The Hindu, headquartered in Chennai (then Madras), reported the next day that most newspapers “failed to come out of a power failure” in the area.
The lead headline, of course, was on the declaration of the state of internal Emergency by the Indira Gandhi government. Among the newspapers that had their offices on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg was Indian Express.
Late Kuldip Nayar, who was working with the daily then, would later recall that power was switched off for the “next two or three days” in the area. Three days later, on 28 June, Indian Express hit the stands again, virtually declaring a war against the government over its decision to censor the press by framing its protest through a blank editorial.
Over the next few months and years, the newspaper, stewarded by its founder Ramnath Goenka, continued to remain critical of the government’s decision, even as most other publications toed the official line fearing retribution.
During the Emergency itself, the Indira government made several attempts to take over the newspaper, including by letting loose the Department of Company Affairs and the Ministry of Law after it in the guise of probing “irregularities in the newspaper, including illegal transfer of funds to non-journalistic ventures from the profits of the newspaper”, documents veteran journalist Coomi Kapoor in her book ‘The Emergency: A Personal History’.
In 1977, in the general elections following the lifting of the Emergency, the Congress, led by Indira, was dislodged from power for the first time since Independence. Three years later, she returned to power, opening a fresh front against Indian Express.
Within a span of 10 days in the first week of March 1980, the government slapped two notices on Indian Express, saying it did not take approval from the Land and Development Officer or Ministry of Works and Housing regarding construction on the open portion of the plot on the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg on which its office building stood.It was not the first attempt by the government to take over the Express Building though.
Even during the Emergency, on October 1976, Kapoor recounts in her book, officials of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, accompanied by a large posse of police, “forcibly seized and sealed the Express printing press in the basement of the Express Building, on the grounds that municipal taxes were in arrears.”
Incidentally, the land itself was allocated to the Express Newspapers by the Jawaharlal Nehru government, and the lease agreement for it was executed in 1952. Subsequently, the newspaper group had approached the authorities to use parts of the building and the surplus area for commercial purposes as well.
This would go on to become the subject matter of a protracted dispute between the government and the newspaper group which was finally settled by the Delhi High Court on Saturday, with Justice Prathiba M. Singh ruling in the favour of the Express Newspapers.
In fact, the newspaper had obtained a favourable judgment from a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court on 7 October 1985 after it approached with a petition under Article 32 (which gives citizens the right to approach the SC for constitutional remedies when their fundamental rights are violated) of the Constitution.
The apex court, in its verdict, tore apart the government, quashing its bid to take over the building, terming its move as “totalitarian”.
“It is a sad reflection on the state of affairs brought about during the period of Emergency which brought into existence a totalitarian trend in administration and I do not wish to aggravate any of its features by unnecessary allusions. In the process, the country witnessed misuse of mass media totally inconceivable and unheard of in a democratic form of Government by ruthless suppression of the press by exercise of pre-censorship powers, enactment of a set of draconian laws which reduced freedom of the press to a naught,” the SC had said.
In its judgment, it also restrained the Centre from taking any steps for termination of lease, non-payment of conversion charges or otherwise for the construction of the building. It relegated the parties to a civil suit for adjudication of the disputes in respect of conversion charges and occupation charges.
But the sledgehammer tactics of the government, which had by then been taken over by Indira’s son Rajiv Gandhi after her assassination in 1984, continued. On 1 August, 1986, Express Newspapers received a fresh show cause notice from the government in which the same set of alleged violations already adjudicated upon by the apex court were listed.
The Rajiv Gandhi government argued that two out of three judges who authored the apex court’s judgment did not really express their opinion “in regard to the breaches and violations of the terms of lease committed” by the Express Newspapers. It said Justice A.P. Sen’s observations amounted to a minority judgment.
On 15 November, a news report appeared in The Times of India with the headline, ‘Government takes over Express Building in Delhi’. On the same day, the Express Group wrote to the government saying it was not informed of any such move. The government responded saying it has moved the Delhi High Court, seeking to take over the building.
The Express Newspapers argued in the court that the decision of the Supreme Court was a three-judge bench decision and that “there is no majority or minority view as all the three judges agree with each other and there is no dissenting opinion in this judgment.”
In its 30 August judgment, the High Court endorsed the position of the newspaper group, saying that the Supreme Court “spoke in one voice and quashed the Show Cause Notices threatening re-entry.”
“There was no dissenting view in the said decision. As per the leading judgment of Justice Sen, the then Government had contemplated a legislation to provide a forum for adjudication of such disputes, which did not materialise. Thus, the Supreme Court relegated the parties to a civil suit for adjudication of the disputes in respect of conversion charges and occupation charges etc,” the HC said.
The HC also termed as “disturbing” that the “issues which were considered and decided in the judgment of the Supreme Court dated 7th October, 1985 in Express Newspapers are again being reiterated and raised in the impugned notices”, as the SC has “dealt with each of the alleged violations in the impugned notices.”
“To re-agitate already adjudicated issues in the manner as is sought to be done by issuing fresh notices of termination would in the opinion of this Court be in total disregard of the painstaking judgment of the Supreme Court which had already gone into all these issues,” it added.
Leading with Nelson Mandela’s quote that ‘a free press is one of the pillars of Democracy’, Justice Singh said that in the judicial history of a nation, the impact of some cases is “beyond their own facts, with larger ramifications for institutions, citizens and their Rights.”
“The dispute erupted as a result of action taken by the then Government in 1977-79, against a media house, for its fair and independent role during the Emergency imposed between the years 1975-1977. Ultimately, the Rights enshrined in the Constitution of India have emerged more powerful and stronger with the seminal decision rendered early on by the Supreme Court in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution,” the court noted.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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