Trial By Media, Constitutional Protection And Administration Of Justice: Indian Scenario
- IJLLR Journal
- Aug 12
- 2 min read
Syed Ali Nawaz Zaidi, Professor, Department of Law, Aligarh Muslim University (U. P.)
Md Asif Belal Ansari, Research Scholar, Faculty of Law, Aligarh Muslim University (U. P.)
Miss Alqama, Assistant Professor, Andaman Law College, Sri Vijaya Puram, Andaman & Nicobar Islands
ABSTRACT
The press is known as the fourth stanchion in a democracy. There is no uncertainty that, it played an imperative part in the Indian freedom struggle. In the recent past, we have witnessed sensational reporting and media trials and even fake news on the news channels on some of the heated issues and a spurt of the construction of selective narratives against its citizenry in India. Particular among them are the people of marginalized and the weaker and the minority communities, who are often at the receiving end of the media which has become the hotbed of toxic and intended, deliberate and vile propaganda in the name of prime time debate. As we have witnessed in recent past that how media transgress its nature of work place itself in to Judicial Institution such as in Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide case where an actress being declared by various premier media houses as culprit and reason for his suicide. Even during covid, the media houses equivocally declared the members of Tablighi Jamat (Muslim Minority Religious Group) as prime actors for communicating in India. This article broadly highlights the legal and statutory vacuum in the electronic media regulation, constitutional protection of both the media and the person victimized by the media, the doctrine of innocence, and administration of justice affected by media trial, the need for an exclusive effective and impartial regulating authority of the electronic-media.
Keywords: Media; Freedom of Speech and Expression; Constitution; Media Trial; Administration of Justice.
