Bhaskar Debbarma vs State Of Tripura And Others

Akil kureshi, CJ

This petition claims to espouse a public cause and is, therefore, titled as a public interest litigation. The prayers made in the petition are somewhat imprecise and some of them plainly not maintainable in a writ petition, nevertheless, the intention of the petitioner appears to be to seek protection of freedom of press. According to the petitioner, in the State of Tripura in last couple of years several news channels have been shut down. In this respect, the petitioner has made following averments in this petition :

"9. The petitioner further states that, in the last three years, the petitioner has observed that all the above mentioned channels have gradually been discontinued. The petitioner further states on oath that, when he enquired about the reason for such discontinuation of these channels, in all of the cases, he found out that the owners and/or appropriate authorities of the channels wanted to continue their telecast. However, firstly the respondent No.6 and thereafter, the respondent No.7 refused to broadcast them due to the reasons best known to them."

In our opinion, this petition is devoid of any material which would enable us to make further inquiries into the petitioner's grievances. Without doubt, freedom of speech and expression is not only a fundamental right, but is also sacrosanct for working of a sound democracy. In this context, freedom of press is just as important. Any afferent or restriction unauthorisedly made on these rights, must disturb the Court. However, such an important issue cannot be argued without sufficient material, proper pleading or production of documents. Merely because the petitioner has titled this petition as a public interest litigation, he is not relieved of his initial responsibility of making proper inquiries, collecting necessary information and placing proper facts before the Court. In all these respects, this petition is completely lacking.

Under the circumstances, in the present form the petition cannot be and is not entertained.

Petition is disposed of accordingly. Pending application(s), if any, also stands disposed of.