India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI, APRIL 13— The Supreme Court of India on Monday asked Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind to make the Press Council of India a party to its petition over vilification by media of Tablighi Jamaat for the spread of Coronavirus in the country.
While refusing to issue instant restrictions on media, the top court bench led by Chief Justice SA Bobde said: “We want to make solid long-term measures about the news items. Once we take cognizance people will understand. We will not pass any Interim orders and hear the matter next week,” reported Bar&Bench.
“Add Press Council of India as a party to the case. We cannot impose restrictions on the press. Implead PCI as a party to the case,” said the bench.
Jamiat has said it will continue its legal fight till it gets positive results.
Jamiat had filed the petition seeking action against certain media houses for communalizing the Nizamuddin Markaz tragedy where over 400 people were found to be infected with COVID-19 or Coronavirus earlier this month.
Appearing for Jamiat through videoconferencing, Advocate Ejaz Maqbool argued that media reporting and government reports are constantly talking about “Tablighi spreading Coronavirus.” Jamiat’s lawyer also cited some incidents of violence in Karnataka and publication of names of Coronavirus victims. On this, the CJI said: “If it’s a question of killing, defamation, then your remedy is somewhere else. But if it’s a question of larger reporting then PCI has to be made party.”
Over 2,000 people were stranded in the grand mosque, which also serves as the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat, in Nizamuddin area of Delhi in the last week of March due to the sudden nationwide lockdown. Many of them were foreigners who are believed to have got infected abroad. As they remained stranded in the mosque for around 10 days, many more in the mosque got infected. All of them were taken out of the mosque on April 1.
Later it appeared that in the last week of March, the administrators of the mosque had made written requests to local government officials for travel passes for the stranded people to go their homes, but they could not get permission. However, on the evening of March 30, it was flashed on TV channels that hundreds of Coronavirus-infected persons were hiding in the mosque. Several news reports and TV debates falsely gave impression that Tablighi Jamaat people deliberately spread the virus in the country. This led to massive hatemongering on social media and this online hatred led to several incidents of communal witch-hunting against innocent poor Muslims in several parts of the country.
Since March 31, the Delhi government was also giving figures about Coronavirus cases related to Nizamuddin Markaz under special category ‘Markza Related’. However, after the Delhi Minorities Commission shot a letter on April 9 to Delhi Health Department asking it to refrain from such classification, the Delhi government stopped mentioning Markaz in its health bulletins.
Will Continue Our Legal Fight Till We Get Positive Result: Jamiat Ulama
The petition was filed by Jamiat’s legal cell.
Commenting on today’s development, Jamiat president Maulana Arshad Madani said: “Our legal fight to rein in biased media will continue till we get positive results. As per the SC order, the Press Council of India will also be made party to the case. Press Council was established after Independence to keep watch on newspapers.”
Maulana Madani further said: “We have been of the view that if an issue is not resolved politically then we move court using our constitutional right and we get justice from there. In this case too, when no action was taken on our demands and requests and communal media did not stop communal reporting then we had to move the court. We will continue our struggle till end. We hope to get justice in this important case also like other cases because this is not the case of only Muslims but it relates to the unity and national solidarity.”
