Judges make a case for fair court reporting

“Judges speak only through their judgments. They have no opportunity to respond and, therefore, media needs to maintain fairness and accuracy.”

“Judges speak only through their judgments. They have no opportunity to respond and, therefore, media needs to maintain fairness and accuracy.”

Justice SH Kapadia, a senior Supreme Court judge, said this in his keynote address at a two-day workshop on “reporting of court proceedings by media and administration of justice” being held in the capital. “Time has come for the judiciary to explain itself to a larger audience of the politicians and the public that their decisions are subject to a caveat, i.e. legal knowledge of such audience,” he added.

Asking media to report accurately rather than scandalising the courts, Justice VS Sirpurkar, another apex court judge, referred to the role of Sanjay, the mythological character in Mahabharata, who gave an “accurate and fair” narrative of the battle to the blind king. “Unless journalists have the divya drishti of Sanjay, it would not be possible for the public to know the truth,” said Justice Sirpurkar. “Public has a right to know. But not what you (media) want them to know.”

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Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan recalled how in initial days of his present office his well-wishers warned him against interacting too closely with the media. “It is an established practice that a judge must only speak through his or her judgments,” he added.

However, Solicitor General GE Vahanvati cautioned the judges to be careful while making observations in court. “With most of the judges, there’s a scope for improvement,” he added.