The Orissa high court has quashed criminal proceedings against a television journalist three years after the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) had implicated him over allegations of spreading false information about Covid pandemic with malafide intention.
The high court added that such acts will have a chilling effect on press freedom.
Quashing the case against Swadheen Raut, input editor of TV channel OTV, chief justice of Orissa HC justice S Muralidhar said that no prima facie case can be made against him either under the IPC (Indian Penal Code) or Disaster Management Act as the airing of the transcript of the conversation between two people by the channel appeared to be a casual one not intended to cause panic in the public.
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“It is highly unlikely that this one conversation would somehow induce the public to avoid treatment for Covid thus resulting in the spread of the pandemic and much less, still induce the public to commit offences against the state,” the HC ruled while quashing the August 2020 FIR and the subsequent trial in the court of SDJM.
In August 2020, OTV aired an audio conversation of two people talking casually about the whole pointlessness of Covid treatment in government hospitals and how BMC officials are deliberately taking people to Covid hospitals to meet their target. One of the persons in the audio conversation alleged that BMC officials must be siphoning off money in the name of Covid treatment. The TV channel after airing the casual conversation had sought a response from BMC.
{{/usCountry}}In August 2020, OTV aired an audio conversation of two people talking casually about the whole pointlessness of Covid treatment in government hospitals and how BMC officials are deliberately taking people to Covid hospitals to meet their target. One of the persons in the audio conversation alleged that BMC officials must be siphoning off money in the name of Covid treatment. The TV channel after airing the casual conversation had sought a response from BMC.
{{/usCountry}}Soon after Bhubaneswar Commissionerate Police lodged a criminal case against Raut under sections 269, 270, 505(B), 120B IPC and section 3 Epidemic Disease Act/52 Disaster Management Act alleging that the audio clip was aired with malafide and mischievous intentions as the clip contains misleading and false information about Covid pandemic.
Raut and another staff of OTV were interrogated at an undisclosed location and accused of spreading hysteria over Covid.
Quoting the 2020 SC judgement in Arnab Goswami vs Union of India case in which the apex court said the “exercise of journalistic freedom lay at the core of speech and expression protected by Article 19(1)(a) and India’s freedoms will rest safe as long as journalists can speak truth to power without being chilled by a threat of reprisal”, the HC said OTV was essentially discharging the function of disseminating news as a media platform.