Delhi HC dismisses plea for bar on media reporting Covid deaths

“Whenever news about death is published, it cannot be said that it is negative news,” the Delhi high court on Monday said while dismissing a plea which had sought directions to restrain news channels from “spreading negativity”.

A bench of chief justice DN Patel and justice Jasmeet Singh said that curbs cannot be put on the media till the time the news being reported is factually correct. It said that news is both negative and positive and the petitioner Lalit Valecha, an advocate, was not aware of the correct facts. The court said it was a “wrong notion” in the petitioner’s mind that reporting of deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic was negative news.

“It is a negative idea in the petitioner’s mind,” the bench

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said and added that as long as the media was reporting correct facts, there cannot be any restrictions on them. It also said that not a single violation has been pointed out by the petitioner against the news channels.

It said that the petition is nothing but a “Publicity Interest Litigation (PIL)” and warned of imposing a cost on the petitioner.

The plea by Valecha had said that the news channels are airing “very negative” visuals and stories of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic which is causing a “sense of insecurity towards life” among people. It had sought formulation of guidelines with regard to airing of news of sensitive nature, such as reporting of mass deaths, people suffering, etc during the prevailing pandemic due to the nonavailability of resources.