Friday, May 25, 2012

[rti4empowerment] Testing your Legal Acumen

 

Testing your Legal Acumen
 
Friends,
 
I present a real-life story related with legal activities which many of you might find quite interesting and intriguing.
The entire story began when my wife Nutan filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench in regards to two news article related to a supposed Army coup. The first one was "The January night Raisina Hill was spooked" http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-january-night-raisina-hill-was-spooked-two-key-army-units-moved-towards-delhi-without-notifying-govt/932328/  and the second was "Senior minister Sutradhar of coup report?" http://www.sunday-guardian.com/investigation/senior-minister-sutradhar-of-coup-report

Logic seems to say that the two news articles are such that both can't possibly be correct at the same time and if one is true, the other should be false and vice-versa. So, Nutan filed a PIL where she prayed that both the matter shall be immediately enquired into by a high level Judicial Enquiry commission so as to take serious legal action against whoever found guilty- one of the two newspapers and/or the Union Cabinet Minister as alleged in the second news article.

In this PIL No 2685/2012, the Hon'ble Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench ordered on April 10, 2012 directing that there be no reporting/release of any news item by the Print as well as Electronic Media relating to the subject matter, namely, the movement of troops. The Court gave this direction to the Secretary, Home Affairs, and the Secretary, Information & Broadcasting, Government of India and the Principal Secretary (Home), Government of U.P for immediate compliance.
Through a letter dated April 11, 2012 the Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India requested Ms Vibha Bhargava, Secretary, Press Council to take appropriate action so as to implement this order but the Press Council of India Chairman Justice Markandey Katju through his own order dated April 12, 2012 said that this order of the Hon'ble High Court was "not correct" and the Press Council would challenge this order in the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India.

Nutan considered it Contempt of the Hon'ble High Court and filed a Contempt petition. She said in the petition that if the Press Council of India was aggrieved by such an order, it had every right to file a Special Leave Petition but as an implementing authority, the Press Council Chairman did not have a legal authority to term it "not correct" and to decide by himself that they would not comply with this High Court order. She said that if every implementing authority starts questioning the Court's order and ignoring them , the entire judicial structure would collapse.

She filed Contempt Petition No 1097 of 2012, where the Hon'ble Court said- "From the perusal of record, it reveals that the authorities to whom directions were issued by the writ Court, have not been arrayed as parties in the instant petition. The applicant, who is present in person, prays that she may be permitted to not press this contempt petition with liberty to file afresh. Accordingly, the contempt petition is dismissed as not pressed with liberty to file afresh"

She filed another contempt petition No 1170/2012 where she presented four cases in which the High Court order was prima-facie violated and news had been published in direct contravention to the Hon'ble High Court order. On May 23, 2012, the Hon'ble High Court dismissed the contempt petition and instead a cost of Rs. 1 lakh was imposed upon Nutan herself.

Now, based on these facts, as an academic discussion, a few important legal issues that arise here are-
1.       Was contempt being made in this case or not?
2.       Has an implementing authority any right to call the order of an Hon'ble Court as incorrect?
3.       Thus can an implementing authority decide not to comply with an Hon'ble Court's order?
4.       In the Contempt of Courts Act 1971 is there any provision for any fine/cost against the complainant?
5.       What is the role of an informant in contempt petition?
6.       A critical and academic analysis of the order of the Hon'ble High Court in the contempt petition.

These questions have very strong and important legal value in our country, not only in this particular context but in a much larger legal framework.
Hence waiting for response from those who find this an interesting issue to discuss and develop

Amitabh Thakur
# 94155-34526

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