Kerala High Court ruled on July 12 that to take the photograph of the accused is not a crime, but, the profession of a media person. Court wondered how can taking the snap of an accused prevent someone from performing his duty. If identification parade was in the pipeline, the accused should have been brought with covered face. Court was considering the petition filed by Mathrubhumi News Malayalm TV channel against the police case registered against its (Mathubhumi’s) reporters for taking photographs of Sharooq Saifi, the accused in the Elathoor Train Fire case.
High Court Single Judge Bench asked why do the police asks for the camera of the Mathrubhumi News just because they had photographed the accused. Why do police send notice and summon the media persons time and again even sans charging them as the accused. Since they are not the accused on record, they cannot move the court for getting the case cancelled.
Court criticised the police in sharp language for confiscating the mobile phones of the media persons. Media persons are likely to obtain lot of information. It is not fair to confiscate their phones for the sake of grabbing those contents and tracing the source. It is contradictory to the concept of the ‘4th pillar of democracy’. Media men should not be bothered and disturbed unnecessarily.
Since the cases were registered against the media men, Mathrubhumi had forwarded two complaints to the State Police Chief. Court asked the police to look into those complaints, hear the Mathrubhumi men and take the decision. And, Court instructed the Mathrubhumi men to cooperate with the case inquiry.
Government of Kerala informed the Court that police would not do any harm to the media men and what is going on is inquiry alone.
Mathrubhumi sources opined that despite giving assurance that they would cooperate with the inquiry lock, stock and barrel, police were keeping on troubling them. Consequently, they complained to the State Police Chief. But, no action, hence they approached the High Court.
This is another example of ‘Freedom of Press’ in Kerala. Still CPM, state CM and the ruling Left Democratic Front talk on top of their voice that Kerala is No: 1 and the press freedom is absolute and not like other parts of the country.
