anniversary of 26/11
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelEntityToPrint_TOINEW&Type=text/html&Locale=english-skin-custom&Path=TOIM/2009/08/17&ID=Ar01401
Publication: The Times Of India Mumbai; Date: Aug 17, 2009; Section:
Editorial; Page: 14
It's our right to know
A G Noorani
On August 4, the Supreme Court stayed an order of the Bombay high
court directing the Maharashtra government to place before it the
report of the Pradhan committee on the state's response to the 26/11
attack on Mumbai. The case has been posted for further hearing on
August 21, after notices are served on the petitioners.
This is fair. What is not fair, however, is that the court made
observations, which were irrelevant to the case, and made disparaging
comments on the electronic media. One hopes that the bench, comprising
the Chief Justice of India, K G Balakrishnan, and justices P
Sathasivam and B S Chauhan will fully reflect on the issues involved
after the final hearing and allay the disquiet its observations have
caused.
The Pradhan committee was set up against a certain background. The
public was dissatisfied with the Centre as well as the state's
handling of the incident. The heads of Union home minister Shivraj
Patil and chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh rolled in rare unison. A
panel was set up by the state government but it soon lost awareness of
its own existence.
Responding to public criticism, the government set up a committee
comprising R D Pradhan, a former Union cabinet secretary, and V
Balachandran, a retired IPS officer to "inquire into the incident of
terrorist attack of November 26, 2008 and to identify lapses in
intelligence input provided by central intelligence agency and to
specify a prompt reaction mechanism" (sic).
The report itself, evidently, does not say that it should not be
published. If it had, the government would have gone to town on that
caveat. In a press statement Pradhan very properly declined to offer
any advice on whether the report should or should not be published and
left it to the state's discretion.
This is where the public comes in. It is common in such cases for
the authors of the report to indicate the passages which should be
excised from the report, when it is published, in the interests of
national security. No one contests that. It is the blanket ban that is
being challenged as it violates the citizens' incontestable right to
know.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the right to know
flows inexorably from the fundamental right to freedom of speech and
expression embodied in Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. It was,
therefore, pointless for the bench to ask, what purpose would
disclosure serve.
The high court had asked to see the report precisely in order to
balance the two legitimate but competing values of freedom and safety.
The public is entitled to know that adequate security measures are
being taken. No one asks for the details. No one in the US questioned
the need to publish reports on 9/11, a far graver attack than the one
on 26/11, though some cuts were made.
But the most astonishing observation by the bench was its
disparagement of the electronic media and, indeed, of public discourse
generally. On the question of making the report public, it observed:
"It will only serve for television discussions" and "it will become a
matter of discussion at many public forums. Will it be a good thing
for the country?"
The paternalistic outlook these remarks reflect are at total
variance with the outlook reflected in the Constitution, which
respects citizens' rights. The court's remarks do not. Like court
judgements and newspaper columns and editorials, the quality of TV
panel debates varies. But TV news channels – good, bad and indifferent
– perform a useful role in our democracy as the court noted in the R K
Anand case. To decry "discussion at many public forums" is to decry
democracy itself.
The writer is a constitutional expert.
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