The Supreme Court on Monday had dismissed the petition filed by Justice SV Ramana for becoming the Judge by willfully suppressing the information relating to pending criminal case against him. The two member bench containing Justice Ranjana Prakash and Justice Aftab Alam quashed the petition filed by Manohar Reddy and Narasimha Reddy. Also, the bench fined the petitioners Rs.50,000 each.

In the 35-page judgment letter, the judges observed that the petition was based on an article that appeared in Telugu daily Sakshi on December 27, 2011 as the same was attached to the writ petition. The bench said that that allegations were baseless and they were not only derogatory, defamatory but also amounts to contempt of court. The bench further said that they had the responsibility to protect the integrity of courts from the unlawful attacks.

The court said that the petition was aimed at damaging the dignity of Justice NV Ramana but nothing else. The judges said that not only this petition lacked merit but also credibility and that was the reason why they were quashing the writ petition. The court, further, directed the petitions to pay the fine within four weeks in Andhra Pradesh High Court.

Andhra Pradesh High Court former chief justice Ramanujam has welcomed the quashing of petition filed against SV Ramana. He opined that the petition filed against Justice Ramana was nothing but an attempt to attack the judiciary. Further, he called upon people to come together to condemn the evil forces that try to affect the integrity of the courts.

Sakshi newspaper undoubtedly came into news for all wrong reasons for allegedly carrying a derogatory article based on which the duo filed writ petition against a justice. Newspapers have a major responsibility in holding mirror up to the society and calling people to action in terms of helping the needy. But today, journalism seems to have gone for a toss with many dailies publishing news without even knowledge of laws related to the media.

(AW Phani)