'Averse To Sealed Covers': Supreme Court Agrees To Examine Validity Of 'Sealed Cover' Procedure

In the MediaOne channel ban case, the Supreme Court has expressed its intention to examine the issue relating to the validity of relying on "sealed covers" to adjudicate issues.

The Court was referring to the practice of one party of the litigation - mostly the Government side - submitting documents before the bench in 'sealed covers' without sharing the copies to the other side, and the Court relying on those documents render decisions. This practice has come under a lot of criticism among legal circles.

In the MediaOne case, the Kerala High Court had upheld the Centre's decision to not renew the channel's broadcast license on the basis of certain documents produced by the Ministry of Home Affairs in a sealed cover, which raised national security concerns. Before the Supreme Court, the channel's main argument is that the reasons for the ban are not disclosed to it.

On Tuesday, a bench comprising Justice DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath told the Centre that the reasons have to be disclosed to the channel so that they can defend themselves. On the previous occasion, the Court had summoned the relevant files from the Ministry.

Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for the channel, informed the bench about the Chief Justice of India's oral remarks today in another case disapproving sealed covers.

"Please don't give us sealed cover, we don't want it here", Dave quoted the CJI as having said.

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While observing that it is averse to the "sealed cover jurisprudence", the bench asked Dave if he has any objection to the Court examining the files which are produced by the Centre before it. 

"We are averse to sealed cover jurisprudence. But do you have issues if we go through the record now?", Justice Chandrachud asked. Dave expressed no objection.

Following this, the bench retired to an anteroom of the courtroom to peruse the files of the Ministry. After a few minutes, the bench resumed and dictated an interim order to stay the Centre's decision to refuse renewal of licence of the channel.

Dave requested Justice Chandrachud to include in the order the reservations expressed by him regarding the sealed cover procedure. The bench agreed and recorded as follows in the order :

"The issue as to whether the contents of the files should be disclosed to the petitioners in order to enable them to effectively pursue their challenge in these proceedings is expressly kept open to be resolved before the petitions are taken up for final disposal.The files shall be produced in the Court on the next date of listing".

The bench clarified that its examination of the files should not be construed as an expression of opinion on the petitioner's claim to access the same.

Justice Chandrachud sought the assistance of the senior lawyers appearing in the matter on this issue of sealed cover.  The judge referred to a case in which the Attorney General was appearing few weeks ago.

"Few weeks ago, the Attorney General was appearing in our court and a similar question came related to cross border security. He said that though I don't want the files to be perused but I have no problem with the counsel for the petitioner seeing the same. So that's the procedure which we have to follow. We have to find some way out Mr Raju(Additional Solicitor General", Justice Chandrachud said.

Senior Advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing in a connected petition filed by the channel's editor, pointed out in the judgment related to internet suspension in Jammu and Kashmir (Anuradha Bhasin case), the Supreme Court had observed that at least the substance of the findings should be conveyed to the affected party, after redacting sensitive information.