'The Indian Express' Moves Supreme Court Against Gujarat HC Calling For Fresh Apology Over Incorrect Reporting Of Proceedings

"The Indian Express" has filed a plea before the Supreme Court challenging a Gujarat High Court order which refused to accept its apology affidavit over wrong reporting of Court proceedings and directed that a fresh apology affidavit be filed.

A bench of Justices BR Gavai and AG Masih granted leave in the matter today and tagged it alongwith a special leave petition filed by Bennett Coleman and Co Ltd (the company which owns and publishes the Times of India) against the same High Court order.

On September 4 last year, while granting leave on Bennett Coleman's petition, the top Court had directed that the impugned Gujarat High Court order of September 2 shall remain stayed. It was however clarified that the main proceedings before the High Court, which related to amendments to the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Act, shall continue.

Background

Last year, on August 13, the High Court bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi issued notice to the Times of India and the Indian Express seeking their explanation for wrong reporting of the Court's observations during a hearing. The Court observed that the newspaper reports gave a wrong impression that the comments made during the hearing were its final views. Later, the newspapers agreed to publish apologies.

On September 2, the High Court was dissatisfied with the manner of the apology published by Times of India, The Indian Express and Divya Bhaskar on August 23. On request made by their respective counsels, it granted 3 days time to the newspapers to tender a fresh public apology in "bold letters at the first page" while clearly informing the public about the "wrong reporting" published by them.

Chief Justice of the High Court pointed out that the apology headline tendered by the newspapers did not specify what the apology was with regard to.

"You should have given it a complete headline that apology is in relation to what. Who is going to understand what is the apology for? Apology for reporting a wrong report, it should come and the report should have been there with this apology. How will people relate to that? Some people may have read that item (August 13 report) and some maybe reading this apology."

When the senior counsel appearing for the newspapers said that the public apology related to the date and title of the report, the Chief Justice reverted that the apology seemed like an 'eyewash' as it didn't detail upon the news item which was wrongly reported.

"This is not the way a newspaper tenders an apology for reporting a wrong news item. It should be related to the news item...It is not the way the apology is tendered. When you are creating a sensational news then it is so huge letters, bold letters with some catch words, catchphrases, middle...where is the remorse? It is not an unconditional apology. It is only an eyewash. Same language in both newspapers. Both editors have tendered apology in the same language".

Case Title: THE INDIAN EXPRESS PVT. LTD. v. THE REGISTRAR HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT, Diary No.42992/2024