New Delhi, July 3: A group of foreign correspondents in the country today approached the Delhi High Court seeking permission to cover the day-to-day trial of the December 16 Delhi gangrape case.
Filing an application through counsel Meenakshi Lekhi and Harish Pandey, the members of the Foreign Correspondents' Club sought the court to review its March 22 order allowing the national print and electronic media to cover the trial saying that they were registered with Press Information of Bureau (PIB), Government of India, and are reporting to various foreign media as responsible journalists.
According to the plea, "since publication of journals, magazines, newspapers for which members of applicant society are reporting is permitted to be circulated in India and abroad and Press Information Bureau also recognises the same, members of the applicant association be permitted to report about the trial of the case of gang rape..."
Justice V K Jain, before whom the plea came up for hearing, today referred the matter for hearing to Justice Rajiv Shakdher who had lifted the media gag order passed by the trial court.
The plea is now likely to be heard by Justice Shakdher on Friday.
On March 22, allowing the plea of a group of accredited journalists from the high court, the judge had also set aside the Delhi Police's January 5 advisory which had said the proceedings in the case cannot be reported as the lower court had already taken cognisance of the charge sheet and the magisterial court's January 7 order for in-camera trial in the case.
The high court had said "the reporting shall not disclose the names of the victim or those of the members of the family of the victim or the complainant or witnesses cited in the proceedings."
"The reportage shall exclude the part of the proceedings which the trial court specifically so directs," it added.
The high court also hoped the media will confine its reporting to the news and will not transgress into areas in the trial court's domain.
"It is hoped that reportage will confine itself to the news as it is and not transgress into the areas which are in the domain of the court. There is a thin but a clean and distinct line dividing the two which, if respected, will augur well for institutional integrity," the court had observed.
The 23-year-old victim was gangraped in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16 last. She died in a Singapore hospital on December 29.
The Delhi Police had opposed the journalists' plea seeking access to the trial in the gangrape case, saying the inquiry and trial in every rape case should be held in-camera.
The journalists, in their plea, had argued the media has a duty to access all the cases, which is part of democratic system, and a blanket ban order against the media's access is a "bad order" in a free society.
They had sought an open trial in the case and submitted reporting of the gangrape case had helped the society and due to wide coverage of the incident, two superior courts of the country had taken suo motu cognisance of the incident.
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