"Eyewash": Gujarat HC Dissatisfied With Public Apology Of 3 Newspapers For Wrongly Reporting Court Proceedings, Grants Time To Publish Afresh

The Gujarat High Court on Monday rejected affidavits filed by three newspapers, tendering and containing the public apology issued by them for wrongly reporting the court proceedings in connection with the ongoing hearing of a batch of pleas moved by various linguistic and religious minority schools challenging amendments to the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Act.

Court said the public apology published by Times of India, The Indian Express and Divya Bhaskar was not satisfactory. However, on request made by their respective counsel, it granted three days time to the newspapers to tender a fresh public apology in "bold letters at the first page" while clearly informing the public about the "wrong reporting" published by them last month.

On August 22, on the request made by the counsel appearing for The Indian Express and The Times Of India, a division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi had in its order granted "three days time" to them to tender a "public apology" in their respective newspapers, "about the mistake, which they (newspapers) say that they have realized after the notices were issued to them vide order dated 13.08.2024". 

As no one had then appeared for Divya Bhaskar, the court had then (on August 22) issued a notice to the editors of the newspaper to explain "why contempt proceedings be not drawn against them for wilful violation" of the court's directions in its August 13 order. 

On August 13, the bench had passed an order issuing notices to the editors of the three newspapers "calling upon them to answer as to whether they have got authentication from any officer of the Court before making the news items, that too in a sensational way or have simply used 'YouTube' live streaming videos to make the news out of nothing".

During the hearing on Monday, the senior counsel appearing for Times of India and The Indian Express said, "As assured to your lordships, the next day the public apologies on the front page were published by both and the better affidavits without any explanations seeking apology had been filed". 

Pointing to published public apology in the Indian Express, the senior counsel said, "On the front page, centre, your lordships will find the heading apology in bold, the entire article is in bold. And it was published on the very next day". He further informed the court that affidavits were also filed in this regard before the court, which also contained an "unconditional apology and an undertaking not to repeat it". 

After perusing through the newspaper editions of August 23 submitted by Indian Express and The Times of India, the Chief Justice orally said, "You should have given it a complete headline that apology is in relation to what. Who is going to understand what is the apology for. Apology for reporting a wrong report, it should come and the report should have been there with this apology. How will people relate to that? Some people may have read that item (August 13 report) and some maybe reading this apology. 

As the senior counsel said that the public apology relates to the date and title of the report, the Chief Justice orally said, "This is not the way a newspaper tenders an apology for reporting a wrong news item. It should be related to the news item...It is not the way the apology is tendered. When you are creating a sensational news then it is so huge letters, bold letters with some catch words, catchphrases, middle...where is the remorse? It is not an unconditional apology. It is only an eyewash. Same language in both newspapers. Both editors have tendered apology in the same language". 

Meanwhile the senior counsel said that it was an "unconditional apology" and since he was appearing for the two newspapers, he had "settled both the apologies that they should be conditional".

To this the high court orally said, "There is same sentence of apology...Word by word, sentence by sentence, from first sentence to last sentence it is verbatim the same. We are not accepting this...This is not a joke, you are playing with the reputation of the court, you are playing with court proceedings. You cannot do this. We have strong exceptions to way court proceedings are being reported by the newspapers. You read both the newspapers yourself. Both editors have given same sentence of apology." At this stage the senior counsel said that he will take "instructions" and "publish fresh apology". 

The senior counsel further said, "If any fault lies its with me. Im appearing for both" as he wanted to ensure that no explanation comes in the apology. To this, the high court orally said that the counsel should not have given a legal advice for tendering apology. At this stage the counsel tendered his apology and asked the court to accept the same and requested for a further opportunity. 

Meanwhile the counsel appearing for Divya Bhaskar, on the court's orally query regarding where was the newspaper during the hearing on August 22, said, "At the very outset I have tendered my unconditional apology because of some confusion at their end...we are here...The only thing I have said is that I tender an unqualified and unconditional apology. The only comma I have used is that whatever was done was not intentional. Im not justifying anything. I accept it was not correct reporting"

Pointing to the newspaper's affidavit, the counsel said that the chief editor had stated, "In my capacity as chief editor I have also ahead and said that I'm admitting my error in verifying the correcting of the facts that were mentioned in the article which has led to allowing publication of factually incorrect version of court proceedings".

At this stage the high court orally said, "Why could you not have written in bold letters that hearing is going on in this matter?"

To this the counsel said that that it seemed that the "dialogue" which took place between the bench and the members of the bar was possibly "misunderstood" by the reporters. 

At this stage the Chief Justice orally said, "They are not lay persons, they are reporters. If they don't understand sanctity of court proceedings then...We can pass this order also that we prohibit these three newspapers from reporting any ongoing court proceedings. But don't want to do this because we don't want that the citizen be not informed. But misinformation cannot be passed".

The counsel submitted that there was no justification for the same, that it was definitely error on the part of reporter for "not understanding" and error on part of the editor in "not paying attention".

As the high court orally said that who will pay the "cost" of the notice issued by the high court and the "judicial time wasted" on account of the same, the counsel said that while he was not saying that the court may not impose costs, however, as a suggestion, the newspapers can be directed to carry something which "actually brings the court to the general public"– like widely publicizing the next Lok Adalat. 

"We are having Lok Adalat on September 14. Start from today, take the details...and start publishing in your newspapers. All three of you," the Chief Justice orally said to which the counsel for the three newspapers agreed.

The high court thereafter in its order dictated, "The affidavits tendering apology by the editors of three newspapers namely The Indian Express, The Times of India and Divya Bhaskar placed in the court today, tendering public apology in the newspaper about the reports published in the newspaper edition dated 13.08.2024, of the ongoing hearing in this group of petitions are not to the satisfaction of the court. All three affidavits are being rejected, accordingly".

However, on the request made by the counsel for the three newspapers the court in its order granted, "three days further time to tender public apology in newspaper published by them in bold letters at the first page, clearly intimating the public at large about wrong reporting made by them in the newspapers published on August 13, 2024 about the hearing of this matter".

The high court listed the main batch matter for hearing on Tuesday. 

Background

In its August 13 order the high court had noted that the batch matter was being heard since July 30. It thereafter noted in its order that during the course of the hearing on August 12, "certain observations were made by the Bench" which had been printed as a news items in the two newspapers. The publication by Times of India, had the headline “State can regulate minority institutions by excellence in education: HC”, with a sub- heading “Have to give away rights in national interest”.

The order noted, "The construction of the news item from the reading thereof, is such that it appears that the Court has formed an opinion into the matter of the rights of a minority institution to appoint teachers of its choice, vis-a-vis the exercise of State's power to regulate educational institutions run by minorities".

The order further noted that a similar news item was published in The Indian Express at the local page with the heading “Minority and majority schools that get aid must comply with the norms: HC” and another such item was also published in Divya Bhaskar.

The order thereafter stated, "The sensational way of reporting of the observations of the Court gave an impression to the common people that the Court has already formed an opinion, which is nothing but a misrepresentation of the Court proceedings. This practice of sensational reporting of the Court cases in an ongoing Court hearing is to be checked immediately".

CASE TITLE: MOUNT CARMEL HIGH SCHOOL & ANR. V/S STATE OF GUJARAT & ORS and batch