The Gujarat state High Court on Thursday asked the Indian Express and the Times of India to publish a “public apology” in their respective newspapers by tomorrow, Friday, for misreporting the court proceedings. The courts had heard a series of appeals filed by various linguistic and religious minorities against the amendments to the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Education Act.
On 13 August, a panel of judges from Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi had issued an order serving notices on the editors of The Times of India, Indian Express and the Gujarati newspaper Divya Bhaskar.and asked them to answer whether they were authenticated by a court official before publishing the news articles in a sensational manner or whether they simply used live streaming videos from “YouTube” to make news out of nothing.“.
The Supreme Court in its order last week also asked the newspapers to explain why proceedings were not initiated against them because of “Publication of an incorrect version of the court record, sensationalism through distorted reporting of the court’s findings during the hearing“.
During the hearing on Thursday, the Chief Justice told the newspapers’ lawyer orally: “If you admit there was a mistake, first publish a public apology in your newspaper in bold letters, referring to that article and then explaining that the statements you made in those articles were wrong. And don’t write that kind of apology. It should be an unconditional apology…nobody has made an unconditional apology in the newspaper.
“You wrote this article for the public, the public should know that you are wrong. Apologizing to us is not relevant. You have given the public a wrong impression. Apologizing to us does not help you. There should be a public apology to the general public to whom you have given a wrong message with your newspaper article. If you do everything right, otherwise we will proceed with the contempt notice,“, the Chief Justice said orally.
Senior counsel for the two newspapers said the newspapers had filed affidavits admitting their mistake and that the “headlines were certainly not optimally worded”. It was also submitted that Indian Express had removed the publication in question from all electronic media.
On the oral observations of the court regarding the apology, the senior counsel said that it should be made by the date fixed by the court. The High Court then orally informed that the apology should be published by tomorrow, Friday, in “bold letters” on the “front page” so that “everyone can see it”.
The court also granted the newspapers time to file a better affidavit, which they said they would submit along with the published apology.
Regarding the publication in Divya Bhaskar, the Supreme Court dictated in its order: “In the absence of any response, we are issuing a notice to the editors of Divya Bhaskar asking them to explain why no contempt of court proceedings have been initiated against them as they have intentionally violated the directions contained in the order dated 13.08.2024. The notice will be issued to the editors of Divya Bhaskar within two days from today through the office of the Registrar General, Supreme Court. The reply has to be filed by September 2nd.”
The court then set August 27 as the date for the hearing of the main case.
Before leaving, the senior lawyer said: “I can assure you from the conversations I’ve had that there’s no doubt that it slipped through the protocol chains, which shouldn’t have happened.“. With reference to the content of the three articles including the heading, however, the Higher Regional Court stated orally that this was evidently not an error.
“Three newspapers make the same mistake… That is unacceptable. It is not that simple. It is not a mistake. This was a well-coordinated action… It is unacceptable that three newspapers write the same thing in the same way. Only the language was different. The tenor of three articles was the same. Three reports were written in the same way.,” the High Court stated orally.
It was further stated orally that there was a difference between the observations of the court, the findings or decisions made by the courts and the differences between the discussions.
The senior counsel agreed and said: “I bow to the fact that even a layman would understand the discussion taking place in your Lordships’ courts“.
The Supreme Court then orally stated: “We will write all this in our order as soon as we receive this affidavit“.
(The audio of the trial on YouTube was unclear at times during the hearing)
background
In its August 13 order, the Supreme Court had noted that the consolidated matter was being heard since July 30. It then noted in its order that during the hearing on August 12, “certain observations were made by the court” which were printed as a news article in the two newspapers. The publication in the Times of India had the headline “State can regulate minority institutions through excellence in education: Supreme Court” with the sub-heading “Must surrender rights in national interest”.
The order stated: “The interpretation of the report gives the impression, when read, that the Court has formed a view on the issue of the rights of a minority institution to employ teachers of its choice as opposed to the exercise of the State’s power to regulate educational institutions run by minorities.“.
The order further pointed out that a similar news article with the headline ‘Subsidised minority and majority schools must comply with norms: HC’ was published on the local page of the Indian Express and another similar article also appeared in the Divya Bhaskar.
The order then stated: “The sensational way in which the opinions of the court were reported gave citizens the impression that the court had already formed an opinion, which is nothing but a misrepresentation of the court proceedings. This practice of sensational reporting of court cases during an ongoing court hearing must be reviewed immediately.“.
Case Title: MOUNT CARMEL HIGH SCHOOL & ANR. v. STATE OF GUJARAT & ORS and Batch
