Tell us how tone of ‘UPSC jihad’ show will change, Supreme Court asks Sudarshan News

Supreme Court says it doesn't want to come in the way of journalism, but is concerned with the 'vilification' & 'stereotyping' of Muslims in the Sudarshan News show.

The Supreme Court of India | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday asked Sudarshan News to propose measures to change the tenor of its controversial programme ‘Bindas Bol‘ that claims to expose “infiltration of Muslims” in the civil services.

“You have to tell us voluntarily what you will do to assuage our concerns. We don’t want to come in the way of journalism. We know as a court what happened during Emergency, so we will ensure free speech and ideas,” said a three-judge bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, seeking an affidavit from Sudarshan News’s Editor-in-Chief Suresh Chavhanke.

In an affidavit filed in the top court Wednesday night, Chavhanke defended the use of the terms “UPSC jihad” and “bureaucracy jihad” in the controversial show hosted by him.

The bench, which included Justices K.M. Joseph and Indu Malhotra, also remarked that the show was presented in an “inciteful manner”.

The direction was given after the channel’s lawyer, senior advocate Shyam Divan, requested the top court to allow the telecast of the show. Divan argued there was a robust statutory mechanism to deal with complaints of defamation and untruth.

Programme Code violated

The court was hearing petitions against the broadcast of the show which has already aired four episodes. It had issued a pre-telecast injunction against the remaining 10 episodes of the programme Tuesday.

When Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, informed the court about the proposed law to regulate television content, the bench said, “If there was a viable method of regulation, we would not have to step out. Your under-secretary wrote saying Programme Code should not be violated. I&B Ministry didn’t check what happened after the broadcast and how the Programme Code was violated.”

National Broadcasters Association’s (NBA) inability to act against the channel because it was not part of the association was also discussed during the lengthy arguments that were heard for more than three hours.

‘Concerned with vilification of a community’

The judges said they were not in favour of an injunction on the media and investigative reporting. However, they were concerned with the “vilification” and “stereotyping” of Muslims in the show and objected to the graphics used in the show.

“To say that every member of the community represents a terrorist organisation just because some funding members are not above the board is wrong. Because this is where it goes from free speech to hatred as it implies that every member of the community has an agenda,” the court said.

The bench spoke of the pictorial representation of a Muslim with a beard, skull cap and green face, with flames in the background.

“Every time a reference is made to a Muslim person, he is shown in a green t-shirt,” Justice Chandrachud said.

Justice Malhotra added, “Some of these images were offensive to us as well. These flames and (Rs) 500 crores, they were hurtful to us as well. These have to be taken down. We cannot dub the community and the picture of a person wearing a skull cap and green t-shirt with a tag of (Rs) 500 crores.”

Justice Chandrachud found the live chat aired during the show objectionable as well. Reading a line from one of the episodes, he said, “the court had exceptions to such stereotype depiction of the community and the implication that an entire community has infiltrated the bureaucracy.”

Publication restraint is a matter of extreme recourse, the judge said, adding, that there were problems with certain elements of the show, provoking the court to take the extreme step.

“The issue is you implicate a whole community as taking over the civil services. This is the real issue. Whenever you show them joining civil services, you show ISIS. You want to say that Muslims joining civil services is a part of a deep-rooted conspiracy. Can the media be allowed to target whole set of communities?” he said.

The judge also raised objections to the use of words such as namakharam (disloyal) to describe Muslims in the programme, and also the anchor’s remark: “See how they are getting foreign funds, enticing our wife’s and daughters and doing ‘love jihad’.”

‘Aware our decision takes us down a slippery slope’

Divan submitted that his client was willing to revisit the issue if a problem is found. “I believe a cuss word here or a line there is nothing which ought to ignite the jurisdiction of this court to impose prior restraint,” he told the bench.

He accepted the court’s opinion that there should be a balanced representation which abjures such as stereotypes. Divan assured the court that its message will be conveyed to the editor to revisit the problematic elements indicated by the judges.

Before it concluded the proceedings for the delay, Justice Chandrachud told Divan that the court was aware of the consequences its injunction order would have on lower courts, which could result in massive threat to freedom of press.

“We are conscious of the fact that this could take us down a slippery slope and that we have an influence on the lower courts. We are circumspect about it. We espouse free speech as judges and are distressed when we issue injunction because the same becomes a law,” the judge said, suggesting the channel come up with a resolution to the concerns expressed by judges.