Supreme Court: In furtherance of the orders issued by the court in the Bulandshahar rape case on 28.09.2016 in the light of the statements made by Azam Khan in which he termed the entire incident as a “political conspiracy only and nothing else”, Fali S. Nariman, the Amicus Curiae submitted that this Court is constitutionally obliged to evolve new tools to enhance the cause of justice.
The bench of Dipak Misra and C. Nagappan, JJ had asked Mr. Nariman to assist the Court on what should be the action when a person comments on a crime when he has nothing to do with it. He also gave submissions on
- public confidence in the fairness of trial,
- Circumstances interfering with the police investigation of the case and principle of law stated thereon,
- necessity to abide by the principle of non-interference with the investigation or the investigating agency, and
- in the absence of any opinion of this Court, what is to be done in a case if the court is satisfied that there are comments on the investigation or on the victim by a public personality or a public servant
He also submitted that that the electronic and print media namely, Zee News, NDTV, The Indian Express, The Hindustan Times, The Times of India and News18, that have published the press conference report of Azam Khan should be added as party respondents in the instant case and their stand should be taken into consideration and eventually necessary directions can be issued.
The Court had earlier taken note of the prayer of the father of the victim girl that the case be transferred to another State, upon been disillusioned about the process of fair investigation in the State of Uttar Pradesh because of various developments, had stayed the investigations.
The Court will consider the aforementioned submissions on the next date of hearing i.e. 17.11.2016. [Kaushal Kishor v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2016 SCC OnLine SC 1249 , order dated 08.11.2016]