'Scribe not expected to dramatise incident and create news'

Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court has rejected the bail plea of a reporter accused of abetting a suicide, saying a journalist is not expected to dramatise sensational incidents and create news by putting a person's life in danger.

A Lucknow bench of Justice Vikas Kunvar Srivastav made the observation while rejecting the plea of journalist Shamim Ahmad, co-accused of abetting a mentally and financially distressed man to commit suicide, and filming it outside the Uttar Pradesh Assembly complex on October 20 last year.

In an order, the judge said, "A journalist is not expected to dramatise a sensational and horrifying incident and make news by putting his actor in pitiable condition and in danger of death."

The journalist keeps an eye on anticipated or sudden events happening in society and brings them to the information of all people through various news media without any tampering.

This is his business, the judge observed on June 21.

Rejecting the bail plea, the bench observed, The case of the prosecution against the accused /Shamim is prima- facie established that he told the deceased, living in mental and financial distress, to the temptation and plan to get rid of them. He was present with the deceased at the scene of the incident and filming it."

The order in the case was uploaded on the court's website on Thursday.

According to additional government advocate Prem Prakash, the man, Surendra Chakraborty, of the old city area had a tenancy dispute with his landlord Zaved

Khan for which he had filed a civil suit.