MEDIA TRIAL

Media plays an important role in the society, Media’s role is to make people more aware about what’s happening in the society. Media’s role is not only to show what is being talked about but to also become a voice to people who are unheard. The media is required to be careful about whether it is playing its role properly, its role is to present unknown relevant facts about a person but not to prove a person guilty. The media which is the 4th Pillar of the Democracy is required to keep itself separate from the role of the other Pillar i.e. the Judiciary.

When Media trespasses in Judiciary’s function and starts an informal trial of a person or a group of persons to hold them guilty that is called Media Trial. The Media Trial or Trial by media can be defined as a phrase that has become popular in the late 20th century and early 21st century and is used to describe the impact of television and newspaper coverage on a person's reputation by creating a widespread perception of guilt or innocence before, or after, a verdict in a court of law.?

The system for administration of Justice followed in India is the Adversarial system which was inherited by India through the British colonialism, this system assumes the innocence of the accused and the burden is on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he/she is guilty. The aim of the Criminal Justice system is to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The truth is supposed to emerge from the respective versions of the facts presented by the prosecution and the defence before a neutral judge. The judge acts like an umpire to see whether the prosecution has been able to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt and gives the benefit of doubt to the accused. This system followed in India authorises the judges to hold someone guilty or innocent after due deliberation of facts presented in the courts by both the parties after proper hearing (Audi Alteram Partem) of the both sides, this system calls for a Fair Trial of the accused.

?In the landmark case of?Zahira Habibullah Sheikh and ors vs. State of Gujarat,?the Supreme Court has defined Fair Trial as a trial in which bias or prejudice for or against the accused, the witnesses, or the cause which is being tried is eliminated.? There are various principles associated with Fair Trial and to understand whether Media trial is trespassing the Justice System or not it is expedient to understand how media trial influences these basic principles of Fair Trial as main motive of Justice System in India is to provide Fair trial and if anything obstructs that then it is trespassing the Justice System.?

PRINCIPLES OF FAIR TRIAL

Presumption of Innocence

Every accused is presumed to be innocent unless his/her guilt is proved. The presumption of innocence is a human right subject to the statutory exceptions. The said principle forms the basis of criminal jurisprudence in India. The Principle of Presumption of Innocence seems to be quite scientific in nature, as the burden of proof should be on the person making an accusation, if the case was opposite, people would have been recklessly suing each other and everybody would be busy in falsifying accusations made on them, the duty to falsify such accusation should only come when the accusation are proved by accuser to be true with sufficient evidence. As Indian law understands this predicament, it puts the responsibility on the accuser (prosecution) to prove the guilt and starts with the presumption of non-guilt i.e. presumption of innocence (unless established by law in special circumstances having presumption of guilt).?

A media trial on the other hand, works on Presumption of Guilt. The media trial holds the person guilty even before the person is convicted by court. The media trial works on finding the relevant instances and incidents related the person concerned which are going to malign his/her image. Media trial even exaggerates certain petty issues related to the person which are mostly irrelevant to the case. Media trial tries to show only the facts that fortifies their propaganda, creating a situation of confirmation bias.

In the case of Sanjay Dutt, Sanjay Dutt was accused to have been played a role in the 1993 Mumbai blast and also had been accused of maintaining relations with some prominent terrorists like Abu Salem, etc. He was also found having in his possession an AK-56 Rifle, for which he owned no license. Sanjay was sentenced to imprisonment multiple times under various acts in a span of a decade. He got bail in 2016 and was acquitted of his charges of terrorism. But the media had portrayed Sanjay to be such a criminal that the public had started to see him as a terrorist, due to which he suffered in his acting career because of his ruined reputation.?

Independent, impartial and competent judge

No Judge or Magistrate shall, except with the permission of the Court to which an appeal lies from his Court, try or commit for trial any case to or in which he is a party, or personally interested, and no Judge or Magistrate shall hear an appeal from any Judgement or order passed or made by himself. The law calls for Independent, Impartial and Competent Judge in all cases as only such a Judge can execute a Fair trial without any biasness against the accused.??

On the other hand, the judge in the Media trial is not an independent, impartial and competent person. The judge in Media trial is the general public. The general public among whom most people are even unfamiliar with the actual facts of the case are given the authority to pass a judgement against the accused. These type of judgements are even against the principle of natural justice of Nemo Judex in Causa Sua (whenever any administrative or judicial, or quasi-judicial body exercises their power to perform their respective duties, they must act impartially) also. The Media trial works as an obstruction in the work of the courts system in India. When courts give impartial judgements (which obviously becomes controversial due to the inappropriate image created by media regarding the accused) the general public denies the execution of the court’s order and obstructs the happening of justice. The media trial can be in a way categorised as a contempt of court where Media is trying to make general public question the authenticity of courts and take the matter in their hands and themselves start passing judgements. These type of situation can often lead to the origin of anarchy in a state.

Such a situation was seen in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput suicide case, Bollywood actor?Sushant Singh Rajput?passed away on June 14, 2020?in?Mumbai. Afterwards great number of conspiracy theories were made by Media channels against various celebrities like Sushant’s girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, etc., to grab attention towards their channels.?

In a case where a bunch of Public Interest Litigations wanted the Bombay High Court to give direction to authorities to issue guidelines to be followed by all media houses to refrain from publishing any comments which may jeopardize the reputation of the police and may hinder the case, the Bombay High Court (highlighting the negative influence of Media Trial and how it itself became the judge) held that “ A media trial interferes with administration of justice and could lead to obstructing investigation and administration of justice”.? The Division Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G.S. Kulkarni further said- Media must avoid character assassination of the accused, the victim, or individuals related to the investigation such as the probe officer. In addition, pronouncing guilt or innocence of any person, accused, or victim should be avoided by the media networks, as will predicting the future course of action.

In the Chandigarh University case also, an accused Rankaj Verma was also defamed by Media. No definite proof was against the Rankaj Verma but still Media defamed him and his family and harmed his reputation. The girl’s boyfriend who was involved in the crime was another person and he just used Rankaj’s photo in his Whatsapp DP. This was confirmed by Kharar Court as it held that- “The fact has come to light that the girl student who was allegedly apprehended making the objectionable videos was receiving calls from a mobile number which was being used by another accused. The display picture was of applicant Rankaj Verma”.

Legal Aid

This is a constitutional right of every accused person who is unable to engage a lawyer and secure legal services on account of reasons such as poverty, indigence or incommunicado situation and the State is under a mandate to provide a lawyer to an accused person if the circumstances of the case and the?needs of justice so required, provided of course the accused person does not object to the provision of such lawyer. The words of the Supreme Court above correctly shows the poor availability of Justice in India. It is said that many times that the law is blind which try to portray that law is indifferent to the person’s status, it doesn’t discriminate between male and female or Poor and rich (except in cases of positive discrimination).? But is this the actual situation in India? Although law tries to keep itself unbiased but sometimes due to some constraints like Money, etc a person gets devoid of justice. To solve such a situation the concept of legal aid is developed where a person who is unable to get proper legal assistance is provided assistance by the State.?

But the media trial also becomes a hindrance in this by asking why a particular person is provided legal aid? It is clear in Indian law that everybody has a right to legal aid even though the person is a good person or as bad as a terrorist. Denial of legal aid to a bad person was seen in the case of Yakub Memon.

Yakub Abdul Razak Memon was accused of terrorism and was suspected to be related to the infamous 1993 Bombay Blasts. He was arrested and convicted by the ‘Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 in 2007. In this case, the media criticised the lawyer attorney who defended Yakub Memon, and due to this heavy criticism, the lawyer faced a lot of hardships and difficulties in carrying out his duties as a lawyer, which are providing legal aid to their clients.

CONCLUSION

After looking how Media Trial affects the basic principles on which a Fair Trial is conducted, it can be concluded that Media trial is trespassing the Justice System in India. Doing Media Trial in itself is an attempt to snatch the powers from the Judiciary system in India by the Media channels. This practice is extremely dangerous to the system of law and there is a dire need to regulate the Media channels and establish a balance between Freedom of Speech by Media channels and Court’s independence. The trials’ objective is to meet the ends of justice, and if, there is a competition in order to meet that end between the Right to freedom of expression against the right to a free trial, the right to free trial would Trump upon the right to freedom of expression.?To stop media trials the most important step that can be taken is to regulate the media channels by issuing certain guidelines for them but it is required that before issuing such guidelines the representatives of media channels are also included in decision making or else it could lead to arbitrary guidelines that the Government could use to harm Freedom of Speech.?