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| Gagging Media Information Department turning needles of the clock back by 57 years | | | NEHA
ET REPORT
JAMMU, Dec 10: J&K Information Department is, it appears, determined to gag what it considers the inconvenient section of the Press. Your daily Early Times is one such paper that is being considered by the Information Depart as inconvenient. The fact of the matter is that the Information Department, which is under none other than the Chief Minister, is seeking to turn the needles of the clock by as many as 57 years. It is striving to restore the situation in J&K as it existed between 1932 and 1954 - period during which the undemocratic and draconian J&K Press and Publication Act of 1932 was in operation and when the war-like restrictions on civil liberties, including on the Press, were the order of the day.
Under this anti-Press and anti-democratic Act, the executive authorities exercised absolute and extraordinary powers and could seize any press alleging that it had published article/articles considered by the executive authorities as "seditious." So draconian and anti-democratic was this legislation that even the then J&K High Court of Judicature could not come to the rescue of the Press. The High Court of Judicature would express its helplessness and inability saying it had no other option but to "interpret the law as it is".
Take, for example, the judgment the Full Bench of the High Court of Judicature consisting of Chief Justice Janaki Nath Wazir, Justice Jia Lal Kilm and Justice MA Shamiri, delivered on April 11, 1952 in the Mulk Raj Saraf verses State case (Criminal original No. 5 of 2008 - February 1952 --). The Government of Sheikh Abdullah had seized the Prem Printing Press because the Urdu Weekly Kashmir Mail, which was printed at the Prem Printing Press, had published an article under the heading "Bachoan per zulam subh shagun hai" "Atrocities on children a good omen".
The article contained details on the atrocities committed by the state police and the Army on the students of the Prince of Wales College (G.G.M. Science College), Jammu, for the simple reason that they objected to the move of the then government to hoist the national flag and the National Conference flag at the same time in a physical display organized by the Education Department on January 15, 1952. The article had just opined that the authorities would face the consequences for the atrocities the state police committed on the unarmed students.
Mulk Raj Saraf knocked at the doors of the High Court to seek justice but with no result. The High Court in its judgment, which went against Mulk Raj Saraf, among other things, said that "the Court is bound to give effect to the language of the Act so long as it is in existence even though it thinks that the provisions of the Act have not kept pace with the changed time…" RC Nanda pleaded the case on behalf of Mulkh Raj Saraf.
It was only Wazir-e-Azam Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, who succeeded Sheikh Abdullah on August 9, 1953, that the obnoxious and archaic Press and Publication Act was thrown in the dustbin and the Press granted full freedom. Thus, commenced an era in which the people and the Press could freely express their views on the deeds and misdeeds of the government.
It appears that those bad old days are coming back and that it would be a mater of days when the Press would again be fettered and people denied their fundamental right to express their views. It would not be out of place to mention here that it was last November that the Information Department, obviously at the behest of those controlling the Information Ministry, took a definite action in this regard. Take, for example, its Letter No. INF/PR-143/2009, dated November 11, 2009, sent by Deputy Director, Information Department, to Senior Superintendent of Police, Security, Civil Secretariat, Jammu.
The letter had directed the SSP, Security, to take note of the fact that "it has been observed that some newspaper agencies have been distributing their newspapers/posters/pamphlets in the premises of Civil Secretariat, Jammu," and that he was directed to "get the practice stopped forthwith and direct these agencies to deposit their newspapers in the Distribution Section of the Information Department for further distribution in the Civil Secretariat".
The contents in that dubious letter indicated two things. One was that moves are afoot to impose restrictions on the print media so that nothing reaches the Civil Secretariat that, according to the Information Department, was objectionable. The other was that those working in the Civil Secretariat, which is the seat of the government and which also houses the law-making bodies, Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council, were held aloof from information concerning the burning issues.
Not content with all this, the Information Department has started targeting dailies, particularly your Early Times, because it has refused to yield. So much so, your paper is being denied J&K government adds. It is for the Chief Minister to intervene and ensure that the Information Department doesn't discriminate against such dailies as have been reportedly fearlessly and objectively taking into account the interests of the people of the state, cardinal principles of democracy and the overall interests of the country. |
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