A thoroughly researched new book on media law.
TIME there was when Indian lawyers were notorious for their insularity and ignorance of the world outside, a failing that got worse when some of them became judges. In England, the entrant to one of the Inns of Court has a good record in the university behind him. Fortunately, the trait is on the wane. The modern Indian lawyer makes himself familiar with the growing expanse of the law. Shyam Divan co-authored a fine book on environment law. His wife Madhavi has written what bids fair to be the best book on media law to appear in recent years.
The research is thorough, the style is lucid and comments are incisive. As well as case law, the author cites recent episodes in India which raised issues of media law. She mentions sting operations, for instance. They are here to stay, which is why one wishes that the formidable literature on the subject and rulings of the British Press Complaints Commission were set out in full. Film censorship is discussed but it merits a chapter by itself on the structure of film censorship. It is unconstitutional.
The book will, one is sure, be updated constantly in editions to come. Texts of the statutes on media law should be provided for ready reference, either in the volume itself or in a separate companion volume.
Media Law, the massive work of Geoffrey Robertson, Q.C., and Andrew Nicol, Q.C., surely deserved a place not only in the bibliography, which ignores it, but in the work itself.
Freedom of the media brooks no compromise but, given recent trends, especially in television, one cannot ignore Walter Lippmann's warning, however overdone his anger may seem: "But when the chaff of silliness, baseness, and deception is so voluminous that it submerges the kernels of truth, freedom of speech may produce such frivolity, or such mischief, that it cannot be preserved against the demand for a restoration of order or of decency. If there is a dividing line between liberty and licence, it is where freedom of speech is no longer respected as a procedure of the truth and becomes the unrestricted right to exploit the ignorance, and to incite the passions, of the people. Then freedom is such a hullabaloo of sophistry, propaganda, special pleading, lobbying, and salesmanship that it is difficult to remember why freedom of speech is worth the pain and trouble of defending it."
These trends have provided ready excuses to successive Ministers of Information & Broadcasting in their ventures to curb the media's freedom. But this freedom is part of the unamendable "basic structure" of the Constitution protected from the grimy hands of men briefly in power.
On the other hand, there is no denying the need for norms and, indeed, for a code of conduct. Statutes are not all. Even an elaborate Constitution needs to be supplemented by conventions. The Problem is who will draw up the code and who will enforce it.
The Press Council has been crying hoarse for long to be endowed with teeth and some time back urged that a code of conduct should be drawn up. The Government of India was very willing. That would be a disaster. The Press Council has little to show in the four decades of its existence. Its statute, the Press Council of India Act, itself makes it utterly unrepresentative. Some of its chairmen, retired judges of the Supreme Court, showed poor understanding of the ethos of a free press. The Council should be scrapped. It was meant to be a "court of honour". Those who support its demand for "teeth" betray ignorance of its ethos.
The British model is apt. The 16-paragraph "Code of Conduct" was drawn up by a Committee of editors for the Press Complaints Commission to uphold. It is not a statutory body but a respected one. It represents the differing character and composition of the press - the tabloids included.
In India, it is important to include the TV channels as well. They are running haywire, heedless of norms or conventions. That code should be upheld by a Media Complaints Commission set up by both the print and the electronic media.
