Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said on Thursday that the press should not think they are “sitting on some pulpit.”
The Chief Justice’s remarks on the state of the media came during the hearing of a petition filed by online news portal, The Wire , against a Gujarat High Court decision.
The top judge said some of what the media put out amounted to “sheer contempt of court.” With specific reference to the electronic media, he said journalists behaved as if they had turned “popes or guardians overnight.”
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In a direct criticism of the press, the Chief Justice said: “They [the journalists] are sitting on some kind of pulpit... that is not real journalism.”
“I don’t want to name any particular electronic media, but the way things have been vilified...,” he said.
The Chief Justice said he had “never gagged the press,” but “they cannot write anything about anyone from their imagination.”
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He made it clear that his remarks were not in anyway connected to the case being heard.
There has been a series of critical commentaries in the media following the January 12 press meet by four senior most Supreme Court judges and the treatment of PIL petitions filed in the Lucknow medical college scam.
The oral observations from the Chief Justice began when senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for the news portal, said defamation proceedings and gag orders cannot be used to “throttle journalism.” To this, the Chief Justice asked whether Mr. Sibal was contending “they (journalists) can write whatever they want?”
Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, who was present, tried to provide a measured response, saying, “The press have to be responsible, but there should not be unfair gagging.”
Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium said “with great freedom comes great responsibility.” Mr. Sibal referred to how certain insinuations were made against a sitting HC judge that he was senior advocate P. Chidambaram’s junior. He asked why the SC did not react to such insinuations too.