Asianet News, a Malayalam news channel, has filed a petition before the Kerala High Court alleging harassment by the police for launching a campaign against drug abuse in the state, especially among children, and for publishing an interview with one such drug abuse victim.
According to the petitioners, despite the fact that the aforementioned news item was published with due care and caution, without disclosing the identity of the victim or her relatives, the channel was constantly receiving notices under Sections 160(1) and 90 of the Cr.P.C. directing them to produce their recordings and original video tapes of the news that aired several months ago.
The petitioners claim that, according to policy guidelines issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, visual media is not required to retain such records of content for more than 90 days.
The plea claims that the petitioners’ repeated notices regarding the news published months ago demonstrate the harassment meted out to them, and that the said harassment has caused severe mental agony and insult to the petitioners and its employees.
When the case was heard today by the Single Judge Bench of Justice N. Nagaresh, the Court stated that “they are conducting the investigation, and as part of that, they have asked to produce the documents. They have to search, right?”
The Court also noted that only notices had been given to the petitioners in accordance with their pleadings, and that this could not be considered harassment.
As a result, the counsels responded that there was a procedure that had to be followed in order to perform the search. “Let them conduct the investigation, but don’t harass us,” the Counsels contended.
The petitioners claimed that police were harassing the employees at their workplace while conducting an investigation. The counsels argued that the probe could not be used as a tool to harass the petitioners.
“They cannot harass us under the guise of an investigation. They simply come to the office, take the staff’s cellphones, and take the staff as such to the police station, where they remain from morning to evening,” the petitioners’ counsels stated.
The Court ordered the petitioners to file an affidavit to the effect that the police keeping the staff in the police station had not been mentioned in the plea.
“Let us see on what basis they are asking for documents. Allow the GP to obtain directions. Why do you want to prevent an investigation?” the Court stated.
On March 3, 2023, a group of nearly 30 activists from the Students Federation of India (SFI), the ruling party’s students wing, violently and forcibly trespassed into its Kochi office and intimidated the staff. As a result, Asianet had approached the High Court seeking police security. The Court had disposed of the same and ordered the police to provide adequate protection to the petitioner, in the event of violence.
Following that, the mother of the 12-year-old victim had also approached the High Court for a CBI probe into the problem of luring schoolchildren into drug consumption and using them for drug trafficking and other crimes. The petition claimed that the police conducted an unfair investigation into the matter. The case is presently pending before Justice K. Babu’s Single Judge Bench.
The current petition alleges that the incident took on political colours and that the police were operating in accordance with their political masters. It thus seeks a writ of mandamus or other injunction ordering the police not to harass the petitioners and their workers unnecessarily.
The Court has ordered the Government Pleader to seek instructions on the issue. The matter has been scheduled for further consideration on April 10, 2023.
The present plea has been moved through Advocates V.V. Nandagopal Nambiar, Victor George V.M., Preeja P. Vijayan, Smitha Ezhupunna, and Chithra Johnson.
