AUTHORS - Sakshi Anand, a 3rd-year law student, currently pursuing B.A.LL.B and Apoorva Shah, 4th-year student pursuing B.A.B. ED and both of them are from Central University of South Bihar, Gaya.
“I would rather have a completely free press with all the dangers involved in the wrong use of that freedom than a suppressed or regulated press.” *1
-First Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
INTRODUCTION
Media seems to be one of the pillars of democracy. There are several rights for the citizens and so for the press i.e.,” freedom of press” that is regarded as the mother of all liberties. The term ‘Trial by media’ is a most used term to denote a facet of “media activism” this totally means that the effect of television and newspaper on a person’s reputation that creates a perception in the mind of the common people without the verdict given by the Court. Trial is a very important process that must be carried out by the courts only.
In the context of India, trial by media can be seen frequently in large proportion. There have been various instances where the media has been accused of taking the trial of the accused. By this trial media passes its own verdict even before the courts verdict and it creates a bad perception in the minds of common people. Media trial often makes the victim the accused and the accused the victim, as well as it harms the belief of common people for the Justice System also. Media for so long has undoubtedly performed a great role. Somewhere Media has done a great job and somewhere the worst.
In some of the cases like the Arushi Murder Case, Jessica Lal Murder Case, Ruchika Girhotra Case was brought in front of the common people. But when we look all these cases what media put was false allegations. In case of Arushi Talwar what media deliver that the parents are the culprit as they have murdered their own daughter. Some of the negative comments that came by the side of media that the parents have seen their daughter and the servant in “in a compromising position” and “under grave and sudden provocation” killed them after which, with the help of his wife, he “dressed up the scene of crime”.*2
In the CBI report on page 29, it is mentioned that there is no evidence of Hemraj’s blood in Aarushi’s room. So if Hemraj was also killed by the parents of Aarushi, then why it is not mentioned in the CBI report. Here what media put in public was different and what CBI finds was different. Media Trial is the threat in administration of Justice. Nowadays when we open a TV News Channel what we find is that there is less news and more gossips, advertisements, horoscope, bollywood controversies etc. News channels put only those news which grabs the attention of the common people, or, can be said as those news are served by which the Channel gets more TRP. Journalism and media are supposed to be the medium to put forward the true content. The ethics which media must have includes virtues like honesty, truth, fairness, accuracy, balanced reporting, respect, objectivity and autonomy. All these virtues are an important part of democracy. It feels so bad that these days the media has become materialistic rather than doing professional ethics and sincerity towards the profession work. Article 19 gives people right to freedom of speech and expression, right to inform the present political-economic and cultural life.*3 In news channels more and more publicity in the media about the accused before the trial. Media becomes prejudice in the cases and starts to interfere in the administration of Justice, there are some reporters as well as channels who shows only those news for what they had been paid by political parties. Media had a more negative effect rather than a positive effect. There are certain cases or some popular cases when they are in minds of people media will show only those cases regularly, when one switch to any channel, they all reporting the same story but when the problem is solved there is no single channel who can come forward and accept their mistake. And once these cases are old media stats to find more spicy news to once again grab the attention of the public. Due to these false and fake news trial gets badly affected and affects the Justice system.
Natural Justice when combined with the principle saying that Justice may not only be done it must also seem to be done. Media publications or news that makes the trial prejudice by their interference amount to contempt of court. In these type of trials result comes that the person gets convicted of offences which they have not committed and harms the Justice. To prevent such unjust and unfair trials contempt of court has been introduced. There are number of pending cases or abuse of party may amount to contempt only when a case is triable by a judge. 4 No one has been given the right to assume the role of an investigator and starts the trial or try to prejudice the court against any person in the Court of Law. 5 Chief Justice Gopal Rao Ekkbote of Andhra Pradesh High Court in the case of Y.V.
Hanumantha Rao v. K.R. Pattabhiram and Anr 6 , wherein it was seen that when any case is pending before a Court, no one has the right to comment on it or starts its own trial. There is a real danger of prejudice to the trial made by the media that influence the Judge, the witnesses against a party. The witnesses change their statement believing media to be true, still it is a contempt of Court for prejudices the truth.
There is a 200th report by the Law Commission of India on August 2006. The title of the report “Trial by Media: Free Speech and Fair Trial Under Criminal Procedure Code, 1973” deals with different aspects of the rights relating to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of fair trial etc.*7
The Law Commission report fully expresses their concern about the misinterpretation of fact that leads to threat in the administration of criminal justice.
CONCLUSION
The word Media in its own has a wide meaning. Media by the way of Social media has been connected to the youth of the country, it has wide reach and approach to the common people. Because of their reach it is called as the fourth pillar of a democracy. The power of media is so big, as a U.S. appellate Court judge Learned Hand observed, “The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen, and the far- spread magazine, rules the country.” 8 It is the duty of the Courts that they should not dismiss, without reflection of the case, complaints that it is uncreative must be once seen. The media acts as an alternative to the society and should therefore accordingly reflects its mood, its thinking and its problems and report events that affect public interest or anything like that. When media is presenting the case they must present the true fact of the case.
“In present we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... So I ask, in my writing, what is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.” ― Philip K. Dick
REFERENCE -
1 Quoted by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru; Available at - https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/media.
2. Implicated by the media; Published on Nov 06 th 2013; Available at:
http://asu.thehoot.org/media-watch/media-practice/implicated-by-the-media-10336
3. Justice R.S Chauhan, Trial by media: an International Perspective, cited on (2011) PL October S-38.
4 Subhash Chandra v. S.M. Agarwal, 1984 Cri LJ 481(Del).
5 Dm v. MA Hamid Ali Gardish, AIR 1940 Oudh 137.
6 AIR 1975 AP 30.
7 Devika Singh, Shashank Singh, Media Trial: Freedom of Speech VS. Fair Trail, 05 IOSR-JHSS 93 (2015), Available at: http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jhss/papers/Vol20-issue5/Version-4/N020548894. (Last visited on April 8, 2018).
8 Gary A. Hengstler, The Media’s Role in Changing the Face of U.S. Courts, Available at: http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itdhr/0503/ijde/hengstler.htm (last visited on April 2, 2018).
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