‘Journalism is civilization’s mirror, investigative journalism its X-ray’
CHANDIGARH: Journalism is a civilization’s mirror and investigative journalism its X-ray, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has observed while quashing summonses and all subsequent proceedings in a 2008 defamation case against some journalists here.
In its order dated January 4, the Bench of Justice Anoop Chitkara also noted that journalists serve as independent monitors of power and report information for public good and safety.
“Journalism is civilization’s mirror, investigative journalism its X-ray,” it said in the order. The case emanates from defamation suits filed in 2008 by IPS officer (now retired) P V Rathee against senior journalists including Vipin Pubby, then a Chandigarh-based editor of a daily.
“Journalism is the fourth pillar of any democracy. As a journalist, the reporter’s sacrosanct duty is loyalty towards the citizenry. They serve as independent monitors of power, reporting information for public good and safety, addressing any problems or lacunae in the public system for its effective functioning and immediate redressal.
To ensure an honest and correct reporting of actual events, such journalists require the protection of courts, especially constitutional courts to enable them to publish news without fear of harmful consequences, Justice Chitkara mentioned in his order.
The complaint against them had been lodged in 2008 under IPC sections related to defamation. Pubby and another petitioner have since retired from the organisation they worked with then.
The journalists had moved the high court seeking to quash the summonses and setting aside the dismissal of criminal revision by a Gurugram Sessions Court.
“A complete reading of the news, which contained the complainant’s rebuttal, his version, the version of the police, can be stated to have been published in good faith and discharge of their functions in a democracy, and if restrictions are created to publish such news, it would be just like killing a mockingbird,” reads the court order in the case of one of the petitioners.
