The Supreme Court granted bail to journalist Kommineni Srinivasa Rao on Friday (13th June), who was arrested by Andhra Pradesh Police for some derogatory remarks made by a panellist during his talk show aired on Sakshi TV. Rao was arrested from Hyderabad on June 9 and was remanded to judicial custody.
A Bench of Justices PK Mishra and Manmohan granted him relief citing that he did not himself make the statement and that his right to speech needs to be protected. “Considering that petitioner himself has not made the statement and his journalistic participation in a live TV show needs to be protected and his freedom of speech is also to be protected, petitioner is to be released on bail,” the court said allowing Rao’s writ petition.
The journalist was arrested on 9th June after a panelist on his show allegedly described Amaravati as the ‘capital of prostitutes’ where ‘only AIDS patients live’. A complaint was filed against the incident claiming that sentiments of women were hurt. The complaint alleged that Rao did not object to the remark and instead laughed over it.
Senior Advocate Siddharth Dave, who was appearing for the petitioner, submitted before the apex court that Rao could not be held accountable for the panelist’s remarks. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing the State, countered Dave saying that Rao was abetting the man who made the remarks. “He was laughing,” said Rohatgi.
However, the court was not staisfied with the State’s argument. It questioned how could the petitioner be arrested because of someone’s else’s statements. “Someone else is making the statement. How can this be?” Justice Manmohan asked Rohatgi, who responded, “He was goading and abetting the man who was making the statement. He was laughing.”
The Supreme Court said that the petitioner cannot be treated like a co-conspirators for merely laughing at an outrageous statement. “When someone makes an outrageous statement, we laugh it off. They can’t be termed co-conspirators. Everyday this is happening,” the court said.
After hearing the arguments of both sides, the Supreme Court granted bail to the petitioner citing his age and the reason that he did not make the statement. However, the court warned Rao not to involve himself in any defamatory statement or allow anyone to make such statements on his show.
“Considering that the petitioner himself has not made any such statement and his journalistic participation in a live TV show deserves to be protected so that the freedom of speech is also protected in the process, we direct that the petitioner shall be released in relation to the FIR…subject to the conditions to be imposed by the trial court. It is made clear that the petitioner shall not involve himself in any defamatory statement either by himself or by allowing others to make such statements in his presence in the show which the petitioner is anchoring or hosting,” the court ordered.
