The Supreme Court on Tuesday described as “insidious” and “rabid” efforts to target a particular community through TV shows.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and KM Joseph expressed deep concern on use of power and reach of electronic media to attack a particular community as it heard a petition against a TV show by a private channel on the entry of Muslims in civil services.
“As the Supreme Court of this nation, we can’t allow you to say that Muslims are infiltrating civil services. We can’t tolerate this. No one can say journalists have absolute freedom to say anything,” observed the bench as it issued an interim order on staying the telecast of subsequent episodes of the programme.
The court restrained Sudarshan TV from telecasting two episodes of ‘Bindas Bol’ programme, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, saying it prime facie appears to vilify the Muslim community.
The bench was emphatic that such programmes that tend to show a particular community in bad light cannot go without scrutiny just by claiming the right to free speech and free press.
The court called out the channel, saying it might be doing a disservice to the nation by not accepting India is a melting point of diverse culture. “Your client needs to exercise his freedom with caution,” the bench told senior lawyer Shyam Divan who was appearing for the channel.
“It appears to the court that object of the programme is to vilify the Muslim community and make it responsible for an insidious attempt to infiltrate the civil services. We are duty bound to ensure adherence to the program code formed under Cable TV Act,” said the bench in its order. It added that the edifice of a stable democratic society and observance of constitutional rights and duties is based on coexistence of communities. “Any attempt to vilify a community must be viewed with disfavour,” it said.
The court was of the view that electronic media, because of its huge access, can become a focal point for destabilising the nation by targeting particular communities, and so certain standards should guide them.
“Reputations can be damaged, images can be tarnished. How to control this? State cannot do this. This is a very difficult area of regulation undoubtedly, but we are trying to spread a wider auspice of dialogue. Look at this program Solicitor, how rabid can it get? Targeting a community who are appearing for Civil services,” Justice Chandrachud asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.
On his part, Justice KM Joseph said, “We need to look at the ownership of the visual media. Entire shareholding pattern of the company must be on site for the public. Revenue model of that company should also be put up to check if the government is putting more ads in one and less in another.”
But Mehta objected to the idea of external regulations on the media. “Freedom of the journalist is supreme. There are two aspects of the statements by Justice Joseph. It would be disastrous for any democracy to control the press. There is also a parallel media other than electronic media where a laptop and a journalist can lead to lakhs of people viewing their content. There are a large number of web portals whose ownership is different from what they show,” he pointed out.
The law officer also cited an illustration of YouTube, saying how it will be possible to either regulate this platform or question its revenue model.
The bench retorted that it should not be wary of regulating one thing just because it cannot regulate anything. “Fair comment and equivalent duty of the right to a fair response…Journalists must be governed by certain principles,” it stressed.
The court observed it is inclined to have a committee of five distinguished individuals of commendable stature to suggest certain principles to guide the electronic media. The matter will be heard next on September 17.
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