The Bombay High Court, referring to the probe into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, on Wednesday asked Republic TV’s lawyer if asking the public who should be arrested in a case was part of investigative journalism.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G.S. Kulkarni posed this question to counsel Malvika Trivedi representing Republic TV with respect to the hashtag campaign ‘#ArrestRhea’ run by the channel.
The Bench asked, “The grievance is regarding #arrestrhea. Why is this part of your channel news? When a case is under investigation and the issue is whether its a homicide or a suicide and a channel is saying it is murder, is all this investigative journalism?”
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The court said, “investigative powers are given to the police under the Cr.PC [Code of Criminal Procedure] and you have become the investigator, prosecutor, judge and you also declare the verdict. Then why are we here?”
The court asked why the channel broadcast photos of the body, and speculated on whether the actor’s death was a case of suicide or homicide.
The court was hearing a bunch of public interest litigation petitions against the unfair, malicious and false media campaign against the Mumbai police and seeking directions from the court to issue guidelines to be followed by all media to curtail any comments which may jeopardise the probe.
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