NEW DELHI, Apr 12:
In an unusual move, the Press Council of India today decided to challenge in the Supreme Court the Allahabad High Court order prohibiting media reports related to troop movements.
“The Press Council of India will be challenging the order of the Allahabad High Court in the Supreme Court of India very shortly,” Press Council chairman Justice Markandey Katju chief said in a statement here.
The High Court had directed Secretaries in the Home Affairs and I & B ministries along with Principal Secretary (Home) of the UP Government to ensure that there is no reporting or release of any news item by the print as well as the electronic media related to movement of troops.
Katju said the High Court order, which was passed on a writ petition relating to a report published in the Indian Express regarding movement of army troops, was not correct.
The media has a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution to make such publication, as it did not endanger national security, he said.
The Indian Army is not a colonial army, but the army of the Indian people who pay the taxes for the entire defence budget. Hence, the people of India have a right to know about Army affairs, except where they compromise national security, he said.
Katju noted that the media has done an excellent job in exposing the Adarsh and Sukna scams in which senior army officers were involved and they were well within their fundamental right of freedom of the media under Article 19(1)(A) to do so.
He said that reporting troop movement near the Indian border or during war time should be prohibited as that may aid the enemy and cause harm to the armed forces by compromising national security. “However, in my opinion there can be no general prohibition of reporting of all troop movements,” he said.
Referring to Indian Express of April 4, he said,”I am of the opinion that without going into the question whether the news reporting was factually correct or not, there could not have been a valid prohibition of such reporting, because the troop movement was not at the Indian border or during war time,” he said. (PTI)
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