Public Discourse, Media Reporting and Judicial Accountability
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
Civil Appeal No. 1767 of 2021
(Arising out of SLP (C) No. 6731 of 2021)
The Chief Election Commissioner of India ....Appellant
Versus
M.R Vijayabhaskar & Ors. ....Respondents
Hon. Justice D. Y. Chandrachud
held as below
C.3 Public Discourse, Media Reporting and Judicial Accountability
29 As we understand the rights of the media to report and disseminate issues
and events, including court proceedings that are a part of the public domain, it is
important to contextualize that this is not merely an aspect of protecting the rights
of individuals and entities on reporting, but also a part of the process of
augmenting the integrity of the judiciary and the cause of justice as a whole.
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30 With the exception of in camera proceedings, a courtroom is a public
space. In Attorney General vs Leveller Magazine20, Lord Diplock, held that ―The
principle of open justice requires that the court should do nothing to discourage
fair and accurate reports of proceedings.‖ An open court and transparent
dispensation of justice in all its modalities, is an end in itself. As we have
discussed above, technology is an accelerant in this endeavor, but not the
harbinger of this thought. Media reporting has operated alongside formalized
court processes for close to a century. Court proceedings in colonial India,
especially sedition trials, were also sites of political contestation where colonial
brutality and indignity were laid bare. The widespread reportage on Lokmanya
Balgangadhar Tilak‘s first trial for sedition was seminal in highlighting the variance
in procedural laws and rights denied to Indian undertrials, as he struggled to
access legal aid and was convicted in spite of a non-unanimous verdict of the
jury. The Lokmanya‘s poignant words, while recorded by the order as a
formalized process of sentencing, were circulated far and wide by anti-colonial
publications which fueled India‘s struggle for freedom. These words incidentally
also adorn the plaque outside that very courtroom in the Bombay High Court to
this day21:
―In spite of the verdict of the Jury I maintain that I am
innocent. There are higher Powers that rule the destiny of
men and nations and it may be the will of Providence that
the cause which I represent may prosper more by my
suffering than by my remaining free.‖
20 [1979] A.C. 440
21 Emperor vs Balgangadhar Tilak, (1908) 10 BOMLR 848 (Bombay High Court)
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31 Post-independence, matters of seminal constitutional importance have
witnessed widespread reportage in newspapers and magazines - which did not
merely report on the pronouncement of verdicts, but also the quirks of the counsel
and judges. These tales have now passed down as the legacy of our profession
and also provide useful context for our study of the law.
32 Albeit in the context of the value of open courts, Justice Bachawat,
speaking for this Court in Mirajkar (supra), had placed emphasis on the publicity
of court proceedings in the following terms:
―A court of justice is a public forum. It is through publicity that
the citizens are convinced that the court renders even
handed justice, and it is, therefore, necessary that the trial
should be open to the public and there should be no restraint
on the publication of the report of the court proceedings. The
publicity generates public confidence in the administration of
justice…….Hegel in his Philosophy of Right maintained that
judicial proceedings must be public, since the aim of the
Court is justice, which is universal belonging to all.‖
33 With the advent of technology, we are seeing reporting proliferate through
social media forums which provide real-time updates to a much wider audience.
As we have discussed in the previous section, this is an extension of the freedom
of speech and expression that the media possesses. This constitutes a ‗virtual‘
extension of the open court. This phenomenon is a not a cause of apprehension,
but a celebration of our constitutional ethos which bolsters the integrity of the
judiciary by focusing attention on its functions. Several courts across the world,
including the US Supreme Court, the UK Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal of
the UK and the International Criminal Court enable public viewership of
proceedings through livestreaming or other suitable open access methodology.
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The Gujarat High Court also recently introduced livestreaming of its proceedings,
in a bid to enhance public participation in the dispensation of justice. In this
backdrop, it would be retrograde for this Court to promote the rule of law and
access to justice on one hand, and shield the daily operations of the High Courts
and this Court from the media in all its forms, by gagging the reporting of
proceedings, on the other.