On the last day of Supreme Court hearing in the in the Ram Janmabhoomi – Babri Masjid land title case, the News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) has issued an advisory to all media houses asking them to restrain themselves while covering Ayodhya case hearing.
On Ram Janmabhoomi case, the NBSA said, “do not speculate on court proceedings; ascertain facts of hearing; do not use mosque demolition footage; do not broadcast any celebrations; and ensure no extreme views are aired in debates.”
When Republic journalist Shivani Gupta was harassed by goons at Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani’s ‘hunkar rally’, NBSA hid behind the veil of broadcasting ethics to silence a victim. In fact, instead of standing in solidarity with a journalist who was heckled in the most grotesque manner on national television, the NBSA has taken it upon themselves to question Shivani. The NBSA, in all its wisdom, decided that the issue wasn’t that the reporter was harassed. In fact, in spite of being given a CD that captured the horror, the NBSA decided that they couldn’t conclusively tell if Shivani was harassed.
The Supreme Court today concluded hearing the arguments in Ram Janmabhoomi case and the verdict of the same is expected on or before November 17. The marathon hearing concluded after forty days, making the Ayodhya hearing as the second-longest in the history of the Supreme court after the landmark hearing in Keshavananda Bharati case which lasted for 68 days.
Read: Shia Waqf board chief calls ‘Babri Masjid a blot to India’, says it is a ‘crime to call it a mosque’
Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, representing the Muslim parties in the Ram Janmabhoomi – Babri Masjid land dispute case, suffered a meltdown and tore up a pictorial map showing the exact birthplace of Lord Ram during the hearings in the Supreme Court on Wednesday. The Senior advocate Vikas Singh sought to place on record the book ‘Ayodhya Revisited’ by former IPS Kishore Kunal. Senior advocate Singh is representing the Hindu Mahasabha and the book ‘Ayodhya Revisited’ talks about pre-existence of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. This was when Dhawan had a complete meltdown and it the frenzy he started tearing off papers and maps handed over to him by the Hindu Mahasabha as he strongly opposed the party in the Supreme Court.
