Heres an instance of judiciary terrorizing mainstream media: Three years ago, Times Now channel mistakenly displayed the photo of P B Sawant, a former Supreme Court judge, in the context of a multi-crore Provident Fund scam. The mistake evidently happened because the name of a person involved in the scam was phonetically similar. Justice Sawant sued Time Now. A Pune trial court decreed a criminal defamation suit of Rs 100 crore. Times Now went in appeal to Bombay High Court, which asked Times Now to deposit Rs 20 cr and provide a further bank guarantee of Rs 80 cr as a precondition for hearing the appeal. The channel then went to Supreme Court in appeal against this order. Supreme Court upheld the order of Bombay High Court. The question that arises is: Would any trial court or high court have displayed such zeal if any other individual, who was not a former judge, was defamed? Was it not colourable exercise of discretionary powers on the part of the judiciary?
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 08:04:22 +0000