High Court reprimands advocate for filing PIL to gag media on Maliwal case

New Delhi, May 31

The Delhi High Court on Friday pulled up a lawyer for filing a PIL to restrain the media from reporting the name of Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal in the assault case in which Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s close aide Bibhav Kumar is the prime accused.

Bench warns lawyer

• Noting that the petition was only for “publicity”, and there appeared to be a “political colour” to it, a Bench led by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan warned the lawyer that a complaint would be lodged against him with the bar council for filing such a petition without proper research.
• “You are doing all this for publicity. A complaint should be made to the Bar Council of Delhi. What you are doing is not fair,” the Bench told advocate Sanser Pal Singh who was forced to withdraw the PIL.

Noting that the petition was only for “publicity”, and there appeared to be a “political colour” to it, a Bench led by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan warned the lawyer that a complaint would be lodged against him with the bar council for filing such a petition without proper research.

“You are doing all this for publicity. A complaint should be made to the Bar Council of Delhi. What you are doing is not fair,” the Bench told advocate Sanser Pal Singh who was forced to withdraw the PIL.

“When the victim wants to talk about it then who are you to say anything about it? The victim is not complaining but you are complaining. What is the role of a third party in this? The victim is coming openly about it. It is very clear that your vision is coloured and blurred. You are not talking about victim shaming,” said the Bench, which also included Justice Manmeet PS Arora.

“If the victim is going to television channels and talking about, who are you to file a PIL,” it said.

The petitioner wanted the court to take action against those deliberately disclosing the identity of the victim along with the contents of the FIR.

On behalf of the petitioner, Advocate Yogesh Swaroop insisted that the victim’s name cannot be circulated in case of sensitive matters, including matters of Section 354 (outraging modesty of woman) of the IPC and in the present case, the FIR has been shown in news reports telecasted/ published in news channels and news reports along with the name of victim, which was against verdicts and guidelines of the Delhi High Court.

(With PTI Inputs)