Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court Tuesday restrained the media from live coverage of Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids and seizures, and also issued stern guidelines in this regard for journalists as well as investigating agencies such as the ED and the CBI.
“The media shall not publish or broadcast or telecast live video, audio/print footage of the process of search and seizure, raid or interrogation at any point of time,” a single-judge bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharya said in its interim order, a copy of which was accessed by ThePrint.
“The media, during investigation and before filing of chargesheet, shall not publish photographs of any person linking him/her to the investigation, in news items reporting about the said investigation or any facet of it,” it added in the 38-page order.
The judge, however, said that these are only guidelines that need to be strictly followed and not a gag order as that would go against democratic principles.
Applicable to other cases as well, the Calcutta High Court issued the guidelines in connection with alleged cash-for-job scam in West Bengal-run government schools.
On 10 October, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee’s wife Rujira Banerjee, a Thai national who holds an Overseas Citizen of India card, had moved the high court seeking protection from a “media trial” after she was called in for interrogation (Abhishek Banerjee is an accused in the case).
On the day she filed the petition, she was being interrogated by the ED in her capacity as the director of Leaps and Bounds Pvt Limited, a company under the agency’s lens in an alleged money laundering case related to the scam. The entire investigation is currently court monitored.
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What the court said
In its guidelines, the judge said the “exact source” of information “may or may not be disclosed in the news item but the editors/board of editors/management of the particular media entity must be able to corroborate it by cogent material, if so required by any court of law or investigating agency or other body authorised to do so in law, including self-regulating authorities in respect of the media”.
It also said that “before filing of a chargesheet, the investigating agencies (in the present case, the ED) shall not disclose to the public or the media the circumstances, reasons and/or details of the interrogation, raids and search of any particular person, be he/she an accused, a suspect of a witness (sic)”.
Investigating agencies in general — and the ED in particular — shall not involve or be accompanied by media persons during any
raid/interrogation, search, and seizure procedure at any point of time, the court said, adding that information about such operations should not be disclosed before they are carried out either.
The HC also said the right to free speech cannot override the right to privacy.
During the arguments in court, Deputy Solicitor General Billwadal Bhattacharya, representing the Centre, said the plea should be dismissed as Rujira is a foreign national.
“A foreigner is before your lordship pleading that her Article 14 (equality before the law) and 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) rights are being violated and is praying to curtail the fundamental rights of the press and other citizens of India,” he added. “Media reports are speculative, but can a foreigner scuttle the voice of Indian citizens?”
Senior counsel Kishore Dutta, appearing for Rujira, said his client and her family were being held “guilty of a scam”, and pleaded to know to what extent a probe agency could pass on news to the media.
His client, he said, was a witness and not an accused in the case, and the “prejudicial publicity” was affecting her.
The high court has ordered the media and the probe agencies to adhere to the guidelines until 15 January 2024, the next date of hearing, and allowed the petitioner to proceed with a defamation case.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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