ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 ‘Ban’ on Reporting From Kerala Courts N P RAJENDRAN Vol. 51, Issue No. 43, 22 Oct, 2016 N P Rajendran (
[email protected]) is a political columnist, retired deputy editor of Mathrubhumi and former chairman of Kerala Media Academy. The entry of the media to the open court to report its proceedings is a constitutional right, not a special favour of the judges or advocates. Court proceedings and wider functioning of the judiciary are subjects that the public have every right to scrutinise. The bar association activists’ act of preventing the media from entering the courts of Kerala is illegal, unconstitutional, and hence, punishable. For over three months now [at the time of writing this] there is no news from the courts in Kerala. There is no official ban, but media persons fear to enter the court premises and even when they do venture, they are threatened and even thrashed. It seems as if this predicament is set to continue. This could be repeated in any other state and even in the national capital. And, as the media in Kerala now realise, the newest and most disturbing threat to the fundamental right to freedom of opinion has come from the corridors of the judiciary, the third pillar of demo- cracy, which had till date upheld the freedom of the press as nothing less than the constitutional right to freedom of expression. It all started as a dispute between advocates and legal reporters in the compound of the High Court of Kerala in Ernakulam on 19 July.