The Hindu : Journalists fined for contempt of court

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 12, 2003

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National

Journalists fined for contempt of court

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI NOV. 11. The Delhi High Court today convicted, M.J. Akbar, Editor-in-Chief of The Asian Age, three other journalists and the printer and publisher of the daily in a contempt of court case. A Division Bench, comprising Justice Usha Mehra and Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, imposed a fine of Rs. 2,000 on each of the contemners. The Bench directed them to deposit the fine to the Delhi Legal Services Authority within a week.

While sentencing Mr. Akbar, Kaushik Mitter, Editor, T. Venkatesh, printer and publisher, and Venkatesh Kesri, reporter, the Bench said: "We hope that such a situation, where the court is required to perform the painful duty of invoking its contempt jurisdiction against the press, will not arise again".

The four were sentenced for carrying an item titled "Plea in court to name judge as fraud accused" in its New Delhi edition on May 5, 2003.

The Bench found that the report, which was based on an application filed by an advocate in a Metropolitan Magistrate Court in the Patiala House courts, was published without checking the facts.

The Bench said the advocate's application had been heard by the court concerned and thereafter by a Sessions Court and dismissed. It was neither brought before the High Court or the Supreme Court. Yet the report gave the impression that it was pending in the court.

The Bench found the four guilty of scandalising the High Court and one of its judges.

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