Queries under RTI crossing all limits: Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia

April 13, 2012

kapadiaNew Delhi, April 13: Chief Justice of India (CJI) S H Kapadia on Thursday said a very good law like Right to Information (RTI) was being misused to ask irrelevant and intrusive questions seriously impeding the working of the Judges and the Supreme Court.

When a bench of CJI and Justices D K Jain, S S Nijjar, R P Desai and J S Khehar were deliberating on reporting guidelines of sub-judice matters, Justice Kapadia said, "In RTI matters, since I took over as CJI, I have given answers to all questions except very few things. But the kind of questions and their number is also exceeding limit."

He gave samples of the irrelevant questions that were being put to the Judges taking away their precious time which could have been utilized in studying petitions and case materials. "Why did you attend Nani Palkhivala Lecture? What time did you leave? Did you eat lunch or had tea? Which lawyer invited you for the function? We are working hard but we are not being able to concentrate many a times because these kinds of questions," the CJI said.

"Are these questions relevant for press? It is all going beyond all limits. The RTI Act is a good law but there has to a limit to it," he added.

During the deliberations on reporting guidelines, the court asked senior advocate Anil Divan whether the Nariman Committee recommendations or the self-regulatory mechanism in News Broadcasters Association had provisions to deal with the problem of 'paid news'.

"If in the case of paid news comes before the association what steps would it take? What steps are prescribed in the self-regulatory mechanism? We are all for open court system. But we want to know if in a given case the court comes to a conclusion that reporting had vitiated fair trial and prejudiced the accused, what preventive steps are to be taken?" the bench asked.

The CJI took the lead in formulating the questions and said the court need not be misunderstood for this as it was coming across examples frequently relating to reporting on sub-judice matters. "Take for example today's article in The Hindu about Presidential Reference referring to it as 'all lies'," he said.

"The reference may not be sub-judice but it is coming to the court and the newspaper analyses all issues. How do we control such kind of things? Is it not interference in the administration of Justice? We are only asking to understand what should be done in such cases. Without saying whether it is right or wrong, we are giving the examples to get assistance from the counsel," Justice Kapadia said.

Divan, concluding his arguments, said he was still uncomfortable about framing of mandatory guidelines by the court as it would give a handle to accused and other vested interests would give various interpretations to the guidelines and rush to court seeking ban or postponement of reporting.

Senior advocate T R Andyarujina, assisting the court as amicus, said the US Supreme Court allows its proceedings to be telecast live thus leaving very little scope for misreporting by media. He said in India Parliament under its Privilege Rules could punish journalists for misreporting. "But in last 20 years, the Privileges Committee has only censured the erring ones and never punished them," he said. The arguments would continue on Tuesday.


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News Network
June 19,2020

New Delhi, Jun 19: India on Friday added 13,586 new COVID-19 cases for the first time in a single day, pushing the tally to 3,80,532, while the death toll rose to 12,573 with 336 new fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data.

In some positive news, the number of recoveries crossed the two lakh-mark and stands at 2,04,710, while there are 1,63,248 total COVID-19 active cases, according to the updated official figure at 8 am.

One patient had migrated.

"Thus, around 53.79 percent patients have recovered so far," an official said.

The total number of confirmed cases include foreigners. 

India registered over 10,000 cases for the eighth day in a row.

Of the 336 new deaths reported till Friday morning, 100 were in Maharashtra, 65 in Delhi, 49 in Tamil Nadu, 31 in Gujarat, 30 in Uttar Pradesh, 12 each in Karnataka and West Bengal, 10 in Rajasthan, six in Jammu and Kashmir, five in Punjab, four each in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, three in Telangana, two in Andhra Pradesh and one each in Assam, Jharkhand and Kerala.

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News Network
January 22,2020

Jan 22: India's ranking in the latest global Democracy Index has dropped 10 places to the 51st spot out of 167 owing to violent protests and threats to civil liberties challenging freedoms across the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has been criticized by rights groups and western governments after shutting off the internet and mobile phone networks and detaining opposition politicians in Kashmir.

Modi’s government has also responded harshly to ongoing protests against a controversial, religion-based citizenship law. Muslims have said their neighborhoods have been targeted, while the central government has attempted to ban protests and urged TV news channels not to broadcast “anti-national” content. Some leaders in Modi’s ruling party called for “revenge” against protesters. India’s score in 2019 was its worst ranking since the EIU’s records began in 2006, and has fallen gradually since Modi was elected in 2014.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2019 Democracy Index, which provides an annual comparative analysis of political systems across 165 countries and two territories, said the past year was the bleakest for democracies since the research firm began compiling the list in 2006.

“The 2019 result is even worse than that recorded in 2010, in the wake of the global economic and financial crisis,” the research group said in releasing the report on Wednesday.

The average global score slipped to 5.44 out of a possible 10 -- from 5.48 in 2018 -- driven mainly by “sharp regressions” in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. Apart from coup-prone Thailand, which improved its score after holding an election last year, there were also notable declines in Asia after a tumultuous period of protests and new measures restricting freedom across the region’s democracies.

Asia Declines

Hong Kong, meanwhile, fell three places to rank 75th out of 167 as more than seven months of violent and disruptive protests rocked the Asian financial hub. An aggressive police response early in the unrest, when protests were mostly peaceful, led to a “marked decline in confidence in government -- the main factor behind the decline in the territory’s score in our 2019 index,” the group said.

In Singapore, which ranked alongside Hong Kong at 75th, a new “fake news” law led to a deteriorating score on civil liberties.

“The government claims that the law was enacted simply to prevent the dissemination of false news, but it threatens freedom of expression in Singapore, as it can be used to curtail political debate and silence critics of the government,” EIU analysts said.

China’s score fell to just 2.26 in the EIU’s ranking, placing it near the bottom of the list at 153, as discrimination against minorities, repression and surveillance of the population intensified. Still, in China “the majority of the population is unconvinced that democracy would benefit the economy, and support for democratic ideals is absent,” the EIU said.

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News Network
April 7,2020

New Delhi, Apr 6: Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan on Monday complimented his counterparts in other states for voluntarily accepting a 30 per cent cut in their salaries and allowances in the fight against coronavirus.

Talking to the news agency over the phone, Khan referred to the announcement in this regard made by the Centre on Monday and said he had already written to President Ram Nath Kovind, asking him to reduce his salary and allowances by 30 per cent.

"It is everyone's duty to do this when the country is fighting the pandemic. Even if it is more than 30 per cent of the salary cut, we have to accept it, he said.

The country is fighting an invisible enemy and it is everybody's duty to contribute to meet the challenge, the governor said.

Khan appreciated the LDF government in Kerala and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for taking "proactive" measures in containing spread of coronavirus.

"The government is keeping me informed about the measures taken by it and I on my part give them suggestions and ideas to tackle the menace," he said.

In Kerala, "We have a capable and competent government and over 80 per cent of patients in the state are those Indians who returned from abroad or foreigners. The community spread cases are very less, he said.

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