Media houses in Andhra Pradesh to be sued for ‘baseless’ reports against government

The Andhra Pradesh government headed by YS Jaganmohan Reddy on Wednesday decided to sue media houses to court, if they carry any story against the government without concrete evidences.

A decision to this effect was taken by the state cabinet which met at the state secretariat. The cabinet decided to empower secretaries of various departments to file defamatory cases against all types of media, including print, electronic, digital and social media, if they publish any story against their respective departments without evidences.

An official familiar with the development said hitherto, the departments used to send rejoinders to such negative stories to the media houses through special commissioner of the Information and Public Relations Department. “Now, the cabinet decided to empower the departmental secretaries to file defamation cases against the media. They can take legal action within 24 hours against the organisation responsible for the news item after ascertaining the veracity of such stories,” the official said.

The cabinet felt that certain print, electronic and social media deliberately try to tarnish the government and its officials.