India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI, MARCH 31 – The Government of India has sought a direction from the Supreme Court that no media outlet should print, publish or telecast anything on COVID-19 without first ascertaining facts from the mechanism provided by the government. This prayer was made by the Centre in its status report filed in the SC in response to the PILs seeking directions for the welfare of migrant workers, and measures to control the pandemic transmission.
The status report filed by Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla IAS said that “in an unprecedented situation of this nature, any deliberate or unintended fake or inaccurate reporting either in electronic, print, social media or web portals has a serious and inevitable potential of causing panic in large sections of the society”.
“Considering the very nature of the infectious disease which the world is struggling to deal with, any panic reaction by any section of the society based upon such reporting would not only be harmful for such situation but would harm the entire nation,” the affidavit said.
The Centre also apprised the Court of the measures it has taken to control the transmission of the pandemic.
“Very few countries of the world responded as timely the way India responded as a result of which the spread of COVID-19 is capable of being contained in our country so far”, it said.
