“The building of a democratic society committed to the rule of law under a regime of constitutional rights, values and duties is based on the coexistence of communities. India is a melting pot of civilizations, cultures, religions, and languages. Any attempt to vilify a religious community should be viewed with grave displeasure by this court as the guardian of constitutional values. Their duty to enforce constitutional values demands nothing less, ”said a bench of judges DY Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra and KM Joseph said.
In a PIL that seeks to stop the television transmission of a serialized program ‘Bindas Bol‘ in Sudarshan TV, which has already broadcast four of the 10 parts of the “investigative documentary”, the court did not hide its deep anguish over the content of the program and said: “When you say that Jamia’s students are part of the conspiracy to infiltrate services, that is not allowed. You cannot target a community and mark it in a particular way, which is also based on wrong facts. How the Supreme Court of IndiaWe cannot allow you to say that Muslims are infiltrating the civil service. It is also an insult at the UPSC. In doing so, you cannot say that journalistic freedom is absolute. ”
The bench also asked about the need for self-regulation of content in electronic media. It stopped broadcasting on television until September 17, when the hearing on the PIL will resume. It asked the parties to submit their responses to the petition, as well as the questions raised by the court regarding the implementation of a self-regulatory regime for electronic media.
“The problem with electronic media is their race for TRPs. In doing so they do not care about the damage done to the reputation of others,” the bank said.
The bank’s comment came in the context of TV channels, in recent months, they have gone wild in their coverage of cases involving the suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, the alleged involvement of Rhea Chakraborty, the outbursts of Kangana Ranaut and the demolition of an alleged illegal construction at his Mumbai office.
Attorney General Tushar Mehta related a television channel running a “Hindu Terror” program continuously for a few days and the availability of numerous videos on websites and YouTube vilifying one community or another. He said it would be difficult to control the media at this time and there was a video show on the web that was happy to alarm the air by broadcasting shows about alleged food shortages and food riots immediately after the first pandemic lockout, which caused a mass migration of workers, he said. “That was no less serious than the hate speech,” he said. added.
“Regulating the media is disastrous and detrimental to democracy,” Mehta said, informing the court that the government had issued a notice to Sudarshan TV to ensure that the content of the contested program conformed to the program code of the television networks. and cable (Regulation) Rules. The SC asked him to declare what measures the government took after the first four of the 10-part program aired on the channel.
Appearing for the channel, top advocate Shyam Divan said the show was not about vilifying a community but about investigative journalistic activity. The show was about massive foreign funding from sources hostile to India, he said, asking the court not to form an opinion by seeing snippets from here and there. He said it would be an affront to the sanctity of journalistic freedom if the court stopped broadcasting the show without seeing all 10 parts.
The court said: “At this stage, prima facie, it appears to the court that the intention, object and purpose of the episodes that have been broadcast is to smear the Muslim community. An insidious attempt has been made to insinuate that the community he is involved in a conspiracy to infiltrate the public administration. ”
“Several statements of the episodes, which have been brought to the attention of the court, are not only palpably wrong, but have been made without regard to the truth. There is no relaxation either in the age limit or in the number of attempts available to the Muslim community in the public administration. The drift, the tenor and the content of the episodes is to lead the community to public hatred and discredit. ”
The bank, which had refused to stop the broadcast of ‘Bindas Bol’ on August 28, said it was changing its mind as it now had prima facie knowledge about the nature of the program. “The remaining episodes will certainly be along the same lines. Based on what has been broadcast, we are of the opinion that it will be necessary to ban any additional television broadcasts,” he ordered and prevented the channel from broadcasting the same content on any other Name.
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