NEW DELHI, May 4: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will look into the issue of “sealed cover jurisprudence” which is adopted by government and prosecuting agencies by handing over “confidential” documents to the court in a sealed cover.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant, and Bela M Trivedi was told by senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for a media channel, that time has come when the court gives an authoritative pronouncement on the “sealed cover jurisprudence” which is being adopted by the Governments and prosecuting agencies.
He said that recently in a case of a Gujarat MLA (Jignesh Mevani) who was arrested in Assam, some sealed cover documents were handed over to the Gauhati High Court.
“In Assam again this same sealed cover jurisprudence was adopted in the case of one Gujarat MLA who was arrested there. It is time that the court gives some authoritative pronouncement on the issue”, he said.
The bench said, “Yes, yes. We will certainly look into it but for now the Centre has sought two weeks time to file their reply. We will give them four weeks’ time in view of the upcoming summer vacation”.
Nearly two weeks ago, Mevani was picked up by the Assam police from Palanpur in Gujarat over his purported tweet against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Soon after being released on bail in the tweet case a few days ago, he was rearrested for allegedly assaulting a policewoman who was part of the police party which accompanied him to Kokrajhar in Assam.
The Gujarat MLA was granted bail in the second case also and on Saturday last he completed pending bail formalities at a court in Kokrajhar.
He was granted permission by the court to leave the Assam town as one of his bail conditions was to stay within the limits of the court’s jurisdiction
The Apex Court was hearing a matter concerning the Malayalam news channel ‘MediaOne’.
On March 15, the top court had stayed till further orders on the January 31 directive of the Centre revoking the licence of Malayalam news channel ‘MediaOne’ and banning its telecast on security grounds. It had deprecated the practice of handing over documents in a sealed cover by government agencies.
It had directed that the news and current affairs channel will continue its operations as it was operating prior to the ban of the telecast.
“We are of the view that the case of grant of interim relief has been made out. We order and direct that order dated January 31, 2022, of the Union government revoking the security clearance of Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd stands stayed pending further orders”, the top court had ordered.
“The petitioners (Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd and Pramod Raman editor of the channel and others) shall be permitted to continue operating the news and current affairs channel ‘MediaOne’ on the same basis as it was operating prior to the revocation of clearances,” it had said.
It had passed the order after perusing the files filed by the Centre based on which security clearance was revoked and the Kerala High Court had passed the order upholding the ban on the telecast.
The Top Court had left the question open on whether the content of files based on which the ban order was passed be given to the channel to enable it to defend itself.
The Top Court asked the Centre to file a detailed counter affidavit by March 26 on the appeals filed by the channel against the High Court order.
On March 10, the top court had sought a response from the Centre on the channel’s plea against the Kerala High Court order upholding the Centre’s decision to ban its telecast on security grounds.
It had asked the Centre to place on record the file which was relied on by the High Court.
The Kerala High Court had upheld the Centre’s decision to bar the telecast of the Malayalam news channel and dismissed the plea of Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd — which operates MediaOne — challenging the central government’s January 31 decision.
The High Court had said that the decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to deny security clearance was based on intelligence inputs received from various agencies.
The channel had contended that MHA clearance was only required at the time for fresh permission/licence and not at the time of renewal.
It had also contended that according to the uplinking and downlinking guidelines, security clearance was only required at the time of application for fresh permission and not at the time of renewal of licence. (PTI)
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