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The Karnataka High Court has imposed a fine of ₹10 Lakh on the owner of the Express Publications Ltd, the company which publishes the New Indian Express newspaper. It was done in lieu of an unprofessional behaviour by them of publishing a report which indicated the findings of an inquiring authority’s report which was conducted against a district judicial officer, despite the Administrative Committee, of the High Court already resolving to not accept the report of the inquiring authority dated on 30/5/2013.
What was the court case about?
The court, in its proceedings found out that the newspaper had not reported the fact that the enquiry report was denied by the full bench of High Court and further directed that an inquiry would be conducted by the High Court as to how the earlier report became available to the newspaper. The Karnataka High Court then imposed a fine of ₹10 lakh on them for publishing a story related to the inquiry which was against a senior judicial officer, accused of infidelity.
The charges against the senior judge who was in question were later dropped by the High Court and the report of the inquiring authority was published by the New Indian Express. However, the article did not mention the fact that the authority’s report was not accepted by the High Court. The matter was taken up before a full court of the High Court, a day after the article was published.
Why was The New Indian Express into more controversy?
Justice NS Sanjay Gowda who passed the order said that all the articles under which the senior officer should be charged, should not have been mentioned along with the identity in an improper relationship. The court even said that the New Indian Express has acted in a manner which is unlikely to be of a responsible Newspaper, and that their reporters and Editors have also acted in an unacceptable manner.
It is also said that a decision to not accept the Report had already been taken, nearly 6 months before the publication of the article in question had happened, and yet, this significant aspect of the matter was found missing from the newspaper article. Court said that it proves that they had access to the contents of the Report as they had given a summary of each charge which was laid against the petitioner and its incomprehensible as to how a newspaper would be unaware of the procedure of the report’s requirement before publishing anything about it. The Newspaper under no circumstances can disown their responsibility of stating that they were unaware of the decision of the Administrative Committee.
It was also mentioned that the issue was already a sensitive issue in nature and handling such matters with utmost care is needed. It was unprofessional of the newspaper and a failure on their part which made the petitioner go through immense damage and made the judicial process of making a verdict on the conduct of the judge, a menial task.
“A responsible Newspaper such as the New Indian Express ought to have ascertained complete facts and ought not to have published an article with incomplete facts, more so when the matter was admittedly of a sensitive nature relating to a Senior Judicial Officer,” the Court said.
