The High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday imposed a total cost of ₹73 lakh on an English daily newspaper and three Kannada television news channels to accept their unconditional apology for publishing and telecasting a false news report under the headline “₹9 crore seized in raid on judge” on December 16, 2019.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Hemant Chandangoudar passed the order while dropping the contempt of court proceedings by showing “leniency and mercy” on the media houses as per the apex court’s judgments by accepting their apology though the the court held that the four media houses are guilty under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, for scandalising the judiciary by carrying false and contemptuous news reports.
The media houses had admitted that news reports were carried without any material and verification, and agreed to pay substantial amount as costs, on the direction of the court, for the damage caused to the judiciary due to publication of the false news.
The Bench held that the false news report published by the newspaper showed the High Court’s administration and the State’s judiciary in poor light as the report gave an impression to the readers that there was some thing seriously wrong in Karnataka judiciary, there were many corrupt judges in the city civil court, and the High Court was taking action against them by flouting all laws and threatening them to quit.
The Bench also pointed out that the High Court’s vigilance neither conducted a raid on any judicial officer nor seized cash from his residence as reported in the newspaper as the vigilance wing has no such powers as it is not a police station.
The damage caused due to false news is irreparable as it might have reached several people through various social media platforms and would have affected every judicial officer, the Bench observed.
‘A lesson’
The Bench said that this case should be a lesson to those who make scandalous attack on the judiciary, and showing leniency and mercy by accepting apology and costs should not be treated as weakness of the judiciary.
The Deccan Herald English daily, which had published the report with that headline, besides tendering unconditional apology, agreed to pay ₹30 lakh as costs and accepted the suggestion made by the Advocate-General to hold an impartial disciplinary enquiry through a retired senior judicial officer against the reporter who had written the report.
BTV channel has been directed to pay ₹20 lakh as costs as the channel, besides carrying false report, had also telecast an unconnected file video of counting of currency notes, which had made the viewers to believe that there was a raid on the residence of a judge of the city civil court (Bengaluru), though neither such raid was conducted nor cash was seized.
Two other channels, TV5 and Digvijaya TV, have agreed to pay costs of ₹8 lakh and ₹15 lakh, respectively, besides tendering unconditional apology and submitting a guideline for telecasting news reports pertaining to the judiciary after due verification.
As per the suggestion of the government counsel, the costs to be paid by the media houses would be utilised for repair works of judicial officers’ quarters being undertaken by the Public Works Department at an estimated cost of ₹9.3 crore.
