{"id":131369,"date":"2020-12-17T19:39:07","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T14:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/?p=131369"},"modified":"2020-12-17T20:13:21","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T14:43:21","slug":"supreme-court-media-leaks-agra-dowry-death-chandrachud-indu-malhotra-indira-banerjee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/constitutional-law-news\/supreme-court-news\/supreme-court-media-leaks-agra-dowry-death-chandrachud-indu-malhotra-indira-banerjee\/","title":{"rendered":"Selective disclosures to media affects accused in some cases, victims’ families in others, says Supreme Court in dowry death case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Selective disclosure to media affects the right of the accused in some cases and the rights of victims\u2019 families\u2019 in the other, the media does have a legitimate stake in fair reporting, the Supreme Court<\/a> said this while ordering a CBI investigation and setting aside an anticipatory bail order of the in-laws in a dowry death case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A bench of Justices Dr D.Y. Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra, and Indira Banerjee said the grant of anticipatory bail in a serious offence would operate to obstruct the investigation. The court has set aside the order of the Allahabad High Court which had granted anticipatory bail to the father-in-law, the mother-in-law, the brother-in-law and the sister-in-law in a case of dowry death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The father of the deceased filed an appeal before the Supreme Court seeking the cancellation of anticipatory bail and an investigation by the CBI. The court noted that the husband is already in jail and the father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law had been granted bail by the High Court without assigning reasons in the order as mandated by the law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Apex Court noted the infirmities with the findings of the learned judge of the Allahabad HC who had noted in his order that <\/p>\n\n\n\n (i) The applicants for bail are the father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law;<\/p>\n\n\n\n (ii) The spouse of the deceased is in custody; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n (iii) The FIR is not to be treated as \u201can encyclopedia of the prosecution’s case but must reflect the basic prosecution case.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having recorded the above premises, the Single Judge held that (a) \u201cthe FIR prima facie appears to be engineered to implicate the applicants\u201d; (b) \u201cthere is no co-relation between the various allegations leveled in the FIR\u201d; and (c) the allegations \u201care general in nature\u201d with no specific role being assigned to the accused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Apex Court said, \u201cWe have prefaced this analysis by a reference to the FIR. There is no cogent basis for the Single Judge to have arrived at any of the three prima facie findings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n