{"id":64712,"date":"2019-04-17T01:10:28","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T19:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/?p=64712"},"modified":"2019-04-17T01:10:28","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T19:40:28","slug":"on-press-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/2019\/04\/17\/on-press-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"On press freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<strong>Dear Editor, \u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\nIn its order on the Rafale deal, the Supreme Court (SC) of India has rightly drawn a parallel with the US Supreme Court\u2019s verdict on unhindered publication of the Pentagon Papers and held that the publication of three documents by The Hindu newspaper on Rafale was in consonance with the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech.<br \/>\nIn the 1971 historic legal battle between the US executive and the fourth estate, the US Supreme Court had thwarted the Nixon administration\u2019s attempt to block the publication of information on the Vietnam war.<br \/>\nWhile rejecting the government of India\u2019s plea that the review petition on the Rafale deal was not maintainable as they were based on \u2018stolen\u2019 documents, the SC said, \u201cNo law enacted by Parliament specifically barring or prohibiting the publication of such documents on any of the grounds mentioned in Article 19(2) of the constitution has been to our notice. In fact, the publication of the said documents in The Hindu newspaper reminds the court of the consistent views of this court upholding the freedom of the press in a long line of decisions commencing from Romesh Thappar vs the state of Madras and Brij Bhushan vs the state of Delhi.\u201d<br \/>\nIt is clear that the government\u2019s argument is about ethics &#8211; about the way those documents had been procured, and not about its authenticity. Moreover, by tagging the documents as \u2018stolen\u2019, the government has given a seal on its authenticity.<br \/>\nThe question is: Can the fourth estate investigate the dealings of the executive, even sometimes crossing the boundary of the Official Secrets Act? The answer lies in the counter-question: What then is investigative journalism all about?<br \/>\nIt is true that one is not supposed to peep inside another\u2019s bedroom. But if someone has heard a rattling noise emanating from someone\u2019s bedroom, must not they then peep inside and raise an alarm?<br \/>\n<strong>Sincerely, \u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Sujit De,\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Kolkata\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Editor, \u00a0 In its order on the Rafale deal, the Supreme Court (SC) of India has rightly drawn a parallel with the US Supreme Court\u2019s verdict on unhindered publication of the Pentagon Papers and held that the publication of three documents by The Hindu newspaper on Rafale was in consonance with the constitutional guarantee [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-64712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-readers-forum"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}