Supreme Court Halts Gujarat HC Order Directing New Apology From Indian Express Over Court Reporting Error
The Indian Express has challenged a Gujarat High Court directive before the Supreme Court, after the High Court rejected the newspaper’s earlier apology for inaccurately reporting court proceedings and insisted on a new, detailed apology.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and AG Masih agreed to hear the case and clubbed it with a related petition from Bennett Coleman and Co Ltd (publishers of Times of India), which is contesting the same High Court decision. Earlier, on September 4, the Supreme Court had already stayed the High Court’s September 2 order in the Bennett Coleman matter. However, it made it clear that the Gujarat High Court can proceed with the primary case involving amendments to the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Act.
📍Background of the Case:
On August 13, a division bench of the Gujarat High Court, comprising Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi, issued notices to both the Times of India and the Indian Express for misrepresenting the court’s observations during a hearing. The judges observed that the newspapers gave the impression that certain oral comments during the proceedings reflected the final decision of the bench.
Both newspapers initially agreed to issue apologies. However, on September 2, the High Court expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which the Times of India, the Indian Express, and Divya Bhaskar published their apologies on August 23.
The Court, unimpressed, noted that the apologies lacked clarity and did not sufficiently inform readers about the misreporting. As a result, it ordered that a fresh, prominently displayed apology be published on the front page within three days, with a headline explaining that it pertains to incorrect court reporting. The judges stressed that the apology should clearly identify what was being apologized for, including a reference to the original erroneous report.
Chief Justice Agarwal remarked, “You should have given it a complete headline that apology is in relation to what. Who is going to understand what is the apology for? Apology for reporting a wrong report — it should come, and the report should have been there with this apology. How will people relate to that?”
With the Supreme Court’s intervention, the Indian Express now has temporary relief from complying with the Gujarat High Court’s demand, pending further proceedings.