Journalists should not play truant with court: Magistrate

Mahendra Sombhai Brahmabhatt, the Meghaninagar Metropolitan Magistrate who had issued warrants against the President of India, Chief Justice of India and two others, today accused Zee reporter Vijay Shekhar of ‘‘playing truant’’ with the judiciary in masking the names. He had only followed the law while issuing the warrants, he said.

The name of the President was mentioned as Abdul Fakir Jainul Abidil, that of CJI V.N. Khare as Vishwanath Khare and Supreme Court Bar Association R K Jain as Rajendra Kumar Jain. In such circumstances, ‘‘it was inconceivable for the deponent that any person could even have the temerity to name the VVIPs in any criminal complaint, especially a case such as this, and much less, be able to describe them as businessmen’’, the magistrate said. ‘‘It was not possible to for any reasonable person to conclude that the said accused persons are not businessmen.”

‘‘No litigant or journalist should be allowed to play truant with the court,’’ he said.