What should the Media Do?

We recently had the rather unusual case of a high court judge of India being sentenced to imprisonment for six months for illegal orders and public utterances by the Chief Justice of India and his seven-judge bench. This is the kind of thing that does not happen anywhere except in ba republics, and it is hardly surprising that the media should have made the most of the rare happening. On April 13, Justice C. S. Karn had ordered the registration of a case under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, against all the seven members of the bench. On April 28, he directed the Air Control Authority, New Delhi, not to allow any of the seven members of the bench to travel abroad. On May 7, he sentenced all the seven members of the bench to five years’ rigorous imprisonment. Such a judge, who seemed to have taken leave of his senses, had to be put behind bars. What is rather unexpected in all this is that now it is the media that has come under attack of the Supreme Court for being “unmindful” of the damage caused to the judiciary by “merrily” riding the Karn wave. What is the media expected to do in such circumstances? Is it expected not to report what happened because a high court judge is involved? In that case we have the Supreme Court directing jourlists not to uphold their dharma of truthfully reporting all important matters relating to public life without fear or favour. The Supreme Court would do much better to ensure that there are no high court and Supreme Court judges functioning who have taken leave of their senses. Two former Chief Justices of India have admitted that there is corruption even within the Judiciary. Will the heavens fall if the Supreme Court admits that there is also the odd judge who takes leave of his senses sometimes?

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