Trial By Media

Trial be media has been acknowledged as a grave

blem by almost all countries with free press.

Famous examples include OJ Simpson case, Arushi

micide case and the current Vijay Malya case.

t is not necessary that the victim has to be involved

a court case, even defamation or baseless and harm
culations can be considered as trial by media.

News Media has a responsibility to act as responsible

yers and not gossip magazines, that space is for tab
ause news media has the trust and implied seriousn

 In times of 24 hours news channels and

online media problems are arising that
were never anticipated.
There is a tendency among various news
media outlets to indulge in gossip and
baseless speculations to grab the most
amount of eyeballs.
The Contempt of court Act, 1971 protects
media from any pre trial speculation
therefore in the Arushi Talwar case no
news channel got punished even as they
ran amok and basically declared the
parents guilty with far fetched conspiracy

 Plethora of cases have dealt with the issue of trial

by media, though they were often addressed as
right to privacy cases as the news media was
never all pervasive and as it is now.
The principle that under trial cases cannot be
unduly influenced is accepted by Indian courts but
the protection starts only with the beginning of
trial, this should be changed to arrest or even
better the filing of charge sheet.
There is however also the right of people to know
about events and happenings coupled with the
freedom of press therefore the issue of gag order
becomes very complicated.
Press

in

India

is

also

very

powerful

and

 The Press Council of India has released

guidelines to control the conduct of news
agencies in India but that has been highly
ineffective as demonstrated by the Arushi Tavar
case.
Due to the ineffectiveness of PCI, the Supreme
Court released guidelines in the case of Sahara
India Inc. in 2012 laying down the situation in
which a gag order can be passed so as not to
prejudice the case.
However, only super rich parties can dream of
such remedies and gag orders are extremely rare
due to the influence of media and its widely
accepted sacred and important position in the
Indian democracy.

 Trial by media and hysterical conspiracy theorizing

by respectable news outlets can ruin lives and
irreversibly jeopardize the chance of a fair trial.
Such developments are ultimately harmful not
only to the victim and the society but also to the
integrity and reputation of media and judiciary
which will then cause a feedback loop that rapidly
corrodes the Indian democracy.
There is a high chance of mob justice, vigilantism,
undue importance to marginal or non existent
issues (eg. Love Jihad)while at the same time
diverting from main issues like economy, polity, or
even the basic livelihoods of people and the
conditions of the society like sanitation.

 There is also a problem of media unduly

influencing the judges, this problem is solved in
American system by totally insulating the jury
from publicized cases but in India that is not
possible due to the Judge system.
For example the recent Kanhaiya Kumar (JNU)
case was fraught with hysteria and
misinformation with even lawyers taking sides
which is a total travesty of the neutrality principle
of Lawyers acting as the officers of the court.
In UK, gag orders have been passed quite
frequently due to the wider dichotomy between
tabloid and serious news media. However in India
Infotainment is often confused with legitimate
news source.

 The solution cannot only be legislative or

judicial, it has to be sociological too.
The wider public needs to understand learn the
difference between infotainment and legitimate
news agencies.
Vernacular news channels are the most guilty of
resorting to media trials due to intense
competition and cut throat competition.
However the English news channels are not
much better.
The government needs to limit the number of
24 hour news channels, this can be explained
as over saturation and thus avoid lawsuit under
19(1)(a).

 The Law Commission of India released a very

exhaustive report on the issue of Trial by media
in 2006.

This report not only explains the problem but

suggests solutions that would not
unconstitutional.

The researcher has based the main research

paper on this report while also suggesting his
critiques and suggestions.

 Finally, the problem of Trial by media is an

extremely serious problem as not checking this
problem will lead to an unreliable justice system
that will ultimately corrode the faith in the
institutions of the republic.
The researcher would like to conclude by
predicting that high TRPs gained from conspiracy
theorizing, slandering and Media trials will
ultimately take away the most important asset of
the media: Trust.
Loss of faith in media will then lead to news
channels becoming a joke and that would lead to
unpredictable but definitely harmful results for
the society and country.