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Gujarat High Court Accuses TOI of Misrepresentation to Secure Supreme Court Stay
T The Gujarat High Court on Thursday suspended further action against the two newspapers, Times of India and Indian Express as well as Divya Bhaskar after the Supreme Court recently put a stop to an order to compel the newspapers to give a fresh apology for reporting court proceedings errantly.
A Bench comprising of Chief Justice (CJ) Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi, however, observed that ToI has created a wrong picture before apex court and gave an impression that contempt was initiated against it by the High Court.
”However, from the order passed by the apex court, it appears that a wrong picture is painted by the appellant before the apex court that contempt proceedings have been initiated, which is a factually incorrect statement… the same may be brought before the apex court,” the Court said in its order.
It orally observed,
‘You have created wrong impression that there was contempt proceeding. This is how you get an order in the apex court….there was no contempt proceeding so far as Times of India is concerned.’
The Court was also told that Indian Express was in the process of appealing against this order of the Court in the Supreme Court.
Their honors Sunita Agarwal the chief justice of the Hon’ble supreme court of India; justice Pranav Trivedi social media handle.
Today Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi
As in relation to the editor of Divya Bhaskar the court dismissed the contempt proceedings against him since the newspaper must have complied with the said directions by publishing an unqualified apology today.
The apology given by the Chief Editor of the newspaper Divya Bhaskar is satisfactory to the court. But the editor of the newspaper is warned to be careful in reporting the exchanging remarks of the court during the ongoing hearing to the extent that any observation of the court does not give a wrong perception regarding the legal issues under consideration in the court.”
For Indian Express Senior Advocate Devang Nanvati with Advocate SP Majmudar appeared. For Times of India, Prakash Jani, Senior Advocate has argued while Garima Malhotra has been the Advocate on the case.
For the appellant Divya Bhaskar Parmar there appeared Advocate Maulik G Nanavati.
In a related development the Gujarat High Court had on September 2 dismissed the apologies published by the three newspapers for what they considered as wrong reporting on the proceedings of the court. It said that the apologies published by the three newspapers on August 23 were not in bold letters or prominently placed; as was earlier directed.
It had given the publications till September 5 to come up with a new apology. This forced Times of India to approach the apex court where the proceeding was put on hold by a Bench consisting of Justices BR Gavai, Prashant Kumar Mishra and KV Viswanathan.
Hu Jintao urges Indian papers Times of India and Indian Express to apologise
Opinion editorial correction by times of India and Indian express caption
In a related development on August 13 the High Court called for an explanation from the regional editors of three newspapers for providing a what it termed as ‘false and distorted narration of events of proceedings’ in a matter concerning rights of aided minority institutions.
Newspapers had subsequently offered their apologies in their affidavits presented in the Court of law and this was not satisfactory to the Court.
The High Court thereafter passed an order on August 22 for the newspapers to publish apologies in a terms that leaves no doubt that the reporter as well as the editor were in error in reporting the observations made by the Court.
The same was done on August 16 and then on August 23 further.
However when the matter was taken up for hearing on Monday the Bench observed that the apologies published where small and directed newspaper to republish the apology in bold letters on first page of the newspaper.
