Why in news?
The Supreme Court rejected the Centre's argument that the Rafale Deal documents published in The Hindu and The Wire were 'Privileged'.
What is the case all about?
- The Supreme Court gave its verdict on the Rafale aircraft acquisition deal in December, 2018. Click here to know more.
- Much in line with the government, the Court held that there was no substance to the allegation of "commercial favouritism" in the deal.
- In a few days, certain documents revealing the incongruities in the Rafale deal had been published by The Hindu and The Wire news website.
- Relying on these documents, the petitioners again sought a review of the court’s December, 2018 judgment.
- But the Centre had maintained that the “privileged” documents were procured by the petitioners in an illegal way.
- It said the documents had been removed from the Ministry of Defence without authorisation.
- The Attorney General (AG), representing the government, raised three specific questions -
- relying on the documents was violative of the Official Secrets Act
- the documents could not be accessed under the Right to Information Act
- the government was entitled to privilege under the Evidence Act
- The Centre thus raised objections that documents on which it claimed “privilege” cannot be relied upon to re-examine the verdict.
- However, in the recent verdict, the Supreme Court has dismissed these preliminary objections raised by the government.
What is the court's rationale?
- The court emphasised at the very beginning that the issue before the court is not about freedom of the press.
- But the petitioners had relied upon articles published on various media platforms.
- So it acknowledged the case to be an appropriate occasion to recall the views of the Court on the critical issue of freedom of the press.
- It observed that the “right of such publication would seem to be in consonance with the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech”.
- In earlier judgement too, the court had held that the freedom of press was at the foundation of all democratic organisations.
- The imposition of pre-censorship on a journal is a restriction on the liberty of the press, an essential part of the right to freedom of speech and expression.
- Moreover, no law of the Parliament that specifically bars or prohibits the publication of such documents has been brought to the court's notice.
- Also, there is no provision in the Official Secrets Act or any other statute to restrain publication of documents marked as secret.
- It is neither prohibited from being placed before a court of justice.
- In the process, a judge also mentioned four broad social purposes that Freedom of expression serves -
- it helps an individual to attain self fulfilment
- it assists in the discovery of truth
- it strengthens the capacity of an individual in participating in decision making
- it provides a mechanism by which it would be possible to establish a reasonable balance between stability and social change
- The court also maintained that how a piece of evidence is obtained is immaterial, as long as it is relevant to adjudicating an issue.
- So in line with all the above principles of law and justice, the court allowed the published documents to be relied upon by the petitioners.
- The review petitions filed against earlier orders will now be taken up on merits.
What is the significance?
- The Court’s unanimous verdict is a firm and necessary rejection to the government’s attempts to de-legitimise investigative journalism.
- The judgement will certainly help provide clarity on several aspects of the controversial Rafale deal.
- More importantly, the decision has significance beyond the Rafale issue.
- It rejuvenates the rights of a free press and underscores the principle that it is public interest that would decide the worth of such rights.
Source: Indian Express, The Hindu
