Truth as defence

The Indian media has been come under attack from several quarters in the recent past. Recently, the attorney general argued in the Supreme Court that under the Prevention of Terrorism Act journalists are bound to disclose their sources of information relating to terrorist activity. His stance somewhat undermined a cardinal tenet of professional journalism—the right to maintain confidentiality of sources. The Tamil Nadu Assembly has also taken up a privilege issue over innocuous newspaper reports on the proceedings in the House. Therefore, the Union cabinet’s move last Thursday to recognise truth as defence in cases involving contempt of court was reassuring.

There is widespread recognition in the country today that the contempt of court law is not just anachronistic but severely curtails the functioning of the media. While it is intended to achieve the extremely important purpose of protecting the honour and integrity of judges and by extension the sanctity of the judicial process, it has invariably worked to muzzle the media and ensure that its searchlight is not allowed to fall on the functioning of the judiciary. Indeed, in a 1990 case involving a contempt case against the editor of a Marathi newspaper, the Bombay High Court came up with an explicit articulation of the position that truth is no defence. It ruled that it is preferable to suffer the consequences of having a corrupt judge around rather than put the whole judiciary on trial. Many, and not just from the journalistic community, would argue that this is an extremely retrogressive view and is perhaps the cardinal reason why gross misbehaviour on the part of judges have gone unpunished. The media, not surprisingly, has been timorous about highlighting such wrongdoing with the result that legitimate reform in judicial functioning has not occurred.

This is not to argue that the media has the right to unleash unsubstantiated slander on the judiciary. Every responsible newspaper and TV channel recognises the ‘‘reasonable restrictions’’ that Article 19 places on free speech in the interest of protecting the integrity of the court. However, if there is a just case to dispute this, it cannot and must not be construed as contempt.