BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court has sought response from the State Government on a PIL seeking directions to the Bengaluru City Police Commissioner not to leak details collected during the course of investigations, regarding any cases, to the media or the public, and also to hold the concerned responsible if they leak the same.
Hearing a petition filed by city resident H Naghabhushan Rao, a division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Suraj Govindaraj issued notice to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Bengaluru City Police Commissioner, and also to the State Government,Making regional TV channels respondents to the petition, the petitioner, who is a retired bank official, referred to the way in which media houses have reported the sex scandals allegedly involving former ministers, HY Meti and Ramesh Jarakiholi.
Referring to those scandals, the petitioner prayed the court to issue direction to the I&B Ministry to frame regulation for media houses in the matter of publishing obscene, nude, sexual, and violent content, which would affect public peace, morality and tranquility.
Rao stated that when he was watching television, he had noticed news channels publishing obscene videos/partially blurred nude photographs and videos of several incidents surrounding sex scandals of political leaders, religious leaders and celebrities. Though the programme is shown as news, it is depicted as an “A-rated movie with sound effects, graphics and repetitive dialogue delivery in thematic sound effects”, he alleged.
Maintaining that the act of the visual media is not in public interest, but is in violation of public morality, he further alleged that the media is playing clips having sexual content as part of news, which cannot be viewed by the petitioner and the general public in the presence of family members, especially children.
“The Cable TV Network (Regulation) Act, 1995, is not covering this aspect. In the guise of investigative journalism, these video clips cannot be permitted to be displayed. This will have a far-reaching effect on the morale of the younger generation and degradation of moral values in society,” Rao claimed.