New Delhi, April 29: The Supreme Court has slammed the media and individuals for “misquoting and misinterpreting” its observations on actress Khushboo’s views on pre-marital sex which it said led to “hyper active attitude” of the common man.
inaundated with petitions asking it to review its “order”, though it had merely made certain observations in the form of
queries to the counsel.
During the arguments in the case, the apex court had observed that there was no statutory bar on pre-marital sex and live-in relationship and cited the instance of Radha and Krishna to buttress the view.
“In fact, during the course of hearing, certain queries were put to the learned counsel for parties so as to clarify the legal issue involved in the matter but unfortunately, those queries have been highly misunderstood not only by media but also by common man.
“As a result thereof, we have been flooded with several letter petitions making a prayer for review of the order passed by us. It is pertinent to mention here that no order was passed by us and only during the course of hearing, we had either given some instances or put some questions to the learned counsel which were answered by them.
“Thus the hyper active attitude of the common man was, indeed, not called for. Some have even gone to the extent of telling us that we should have known the Indian mythology before putting such a question. Thus whatever, we have said during the course of the hearing should be reviewed,” the apex court said in its judgement.
The apex court said it failed to understand how those “learned persons” sent various letters to the bench without realising the fact.
“Admittedly, all those persons who have sent letters to us were not present on that particular date but must have gathered information from the print and electronic media which evoked their sentiments to such an extent that they prayed for review.
“It is, therefore, not only desirable but imperative that electronic and news media should also play a positive role in presenting to general public as to what actually transpires during the course of the hearing and it should not be published in such a manner so as to get unnecessary publicity for its own paper or news channel.
“We are saying so as without knowing the reference in context of which the questions were put forth by us were completely ignored and the same were misquoted, which raised unnecessary hue and cry,” the apex court said and hoped the media would be “more careful, responsible and cautious in this regard.”
–Agencies