What can the media interpret?

Apparently everything under the Sun but not the judgments of Indian courts. This is what the CJI is reported to have said, as per a news report – “Chief Justice of India … asked the media not to interpret courts’ judgments…”

This is difficult for me to take. Why is the CJI resorting to exceptionalism for the judicial wing? He is not proscribing comments on the results of the functioning of the parliament or the executive, is he? Then why exempt the constitutional institution he heads from criticism and/or interpretation?

What is wrong if the media distorted the “facts and judgments delivered by the courts”? Media is plural and it is more than likely that if a particular media outlet is biased against the judgment of a court, there is another endorsing it. After all, the courts are players in the game of democracy. Prof J K Glabraith propounded countervailing forces in the economic and public spheres and that is exactly what we get if we gave a freehand to dissemination and dissection of judicial pronouncements.

The CJI “asked the media to report court proceedings ‘correctly’.” What exactly does this mean? Do the media have to get their reports vetted by the Court? I hope not. One of the things I admire about media outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal are the freewheeling discussions one gets to read on the US Supreme Court judgments.

We are, I am proud to claim, as mature a democracy as the US is. Yet, we tend to build mini-fortresses and consider public discussions of what happens within them as trespassing. This is not a healthy attitude.

Muzzling discussions of judicial pronouncements is not the way to go. The courts should be confident of their decisions and throw them open to discussions in civil society. This alone will enhance the prestige of the institution.

Raghuram Ekambaram