New Delhi: The Supreme Court expressed concern about media censorship and stifling of free speech in a recent judgement while asking lower courts to restrain from passing injunction orders that restrain publication of news articles.
The top court, while setting aside an injunction order passed by the Delhi high court asking Bloomberg to take down an article concerning the Zee group, said that such orders could have huge ramifications on the freedom of speech and expression.
The bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud with Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra added that courts should only grant ex-parte injunctions (or injunctions granted without hearing all parties to a case) in exceptional cases, according to a Bar and Bench report.
The court also noted the use of Strategic Litigation against Public Participation (SLAPP) suits to prevent the publication of important information.
“We must be cognizant of the realities of prolonged trials (in SLAPP cases). The grant of an interim injunction, before the trial commences, often acts as a ‘death sentence’ to the material sought to be published, well before the allegations have been proven. While granting ad-interim injunctions in defamation suits, the potential of using prolonged litigation to prevent free speech and public participation must also be kept in mind by courts,” the court observed.
Background
The Court made the observations in a case concerning an article published by Bloomberg which alleged that a $241 million accounting irregularity had been found in the books of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Bar and Bench reported.
The article was published on February 21, 2024, after which Zee filed a defamation suit before a Delhi district court against Bloomberg and its journalists Anto Antony, Saikat Das and Preeti Singh.
The trial court passed an ex-parte injunction order, directing Bloomberg to take down its article, the report said.
Bloomberg moved the Delhi high court against the trial court’s order but did not get relief. On March 14, the Delhi High Court upheld the injunction order and gave Bloomberg three days’ time to remove the article.
Bloomberg subsequently moved the Supreme Court which set aside the injunction order and also expressed dissatisfaction with earlier orders passed by the high court and the trial court.
“The ad-interim injunction granted by the trial judge amounts to unreasoned censorship which cannot be countenanced,” the court said in its order, adding that the error committed by the trial Judge was perpetuated by the high court in its March 14 order.
