PATNA: A day after the Delhi High Court ordered two news channels, Republic TV and Times Now, to refrain from publishing defamatory remarks against the Hindi film industry, several top voices from Bollywood united on Tuesday to applaud the move.
“I welcome the court verdict. There’s a thin line between freedom of expression and defamation,” producer Rahul Mittra told Arab News.
“Though the media has the right to question any wrongdoing, it should exercise caution and engage in due diligence while gathering and disseminating news to ensure that no one’s reputation is maligned,” he added.
The court verdict followed an Oct. 12 lawsuit filed by 38 of Bollywood’s leading producers and production houses, including Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Ajay Devgan, against a “media trial” after actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death in June this year.
While reports said it was suicide, the two channels insisted that it was murder, launching an anti-Bollywood campaign and implying, among other things, that the industry was a den of nepotism, debauchery, drugs, human trafficking and rape, without substantiating the claims.
While issuing the notice on Monday, Justice Rajiv Shakdher said that people were afraid of the media because of its powers, but that it could not run a “parallel” trial.
“No defamatory content should be displayed on their channels or uploaded on social media. The media can’t run a parallel trial. You are a broadcaster — show news. There is less news and more opinion,” the court said in its notice.
It added that things were being “pre-judged,” stressing the slanderous tone and abusive language “used by the channels” against individuals in Mumbai’s film industry.
Times Now had repeatedly singled out superstar actor Salman Khan for “not speaking” on Rajput’s death.
Actor-singer-politician Manoj Tiwari said the industry and its stars were being hounded unnecessarily.
“When the stars don’t respond to media attention, they are accused of high-handed behavior. The Delhi High Court verdict is welcome. The way they hammered people like Salman Bhai, even accusing stars of being involved in all sorts nefarious activities without a shred of proof, is not a sign of good journalism,” he told Arab News.
Veteran actress Asha Parekh, who ruled the Bollywood box office in the 1960s and 70s with back-to-back blockbusters, said maligning the industry had become “big business” for the Indian media.
“Scream the names of Salman Khan, Deepika Padukone and Karan Johar, and you get big viewership. These two channels had become intolerable in their abuse. We are not all drug addicts. These news channels had to be stopped, and I’m glad the court has restrained them,” she said.
Oscar-winning sound recordist Resul Pookutty agreed and added: “I feel sanity exists in our civil society with this court verdict … It’s sad to see our legal courts have to come in for a corrective course. That’s the level we have taken our democracy and civic sense to.”
Veteran actor-filmmaker Ananth Mahadevan, however, felt the industry needed to set its house in order.
“If, as they claim, the allegations do not apply to everyone but specific people, then the Hindi film industry spokespersons are needlessly hyperventilating. All those in the clear — and I vainly claim to be one — do not get affected and go about our commitments quietly. Who are these self-appointed leaders who are otherwise not heard when there are more pressing issues to be addressed? ... This is a huge guilty conscience of protest.”
Representatives from Republic TV and Times Now were unavailable for comment when contacted by Arab News on Tuesday.
However, Manish Jha, national affairs editor at NDTV, said the court’s directive could lead to “introspection” among the media houses.
“This High Court observation and court order somewhere forces all the channels to introspect and be more careful on the future coverage of Bollywood,” he said.
