Do not give unnecessary publicity to Pune woman’s death: Bombay HC tells media

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has directed the media not to give unnecessary publicity to an incident where a woman allegedly committed suicide in Pune and her suspected illicit relations with a man, according to an order made available on Friday.

A division bench of Justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitale gave the directive on Thursday. The bench was hearing a petition filed by the woman’s father against news articles on his daughter, her death, and her alleged relationship.

Senior counsel Shirish Gupte, showing for the lady’s father, informed the court docket the petitioner had learned that his daughter fell from the balcony of her flat in Pune on February 8 and was declared lifeless on the hospital.

Soon after the incident, various news reports in print and electronic media emerged alleging the 23-year-old woman was in an illicit relationship with a man, Gupte said, dubbing the reports as defamatory and derogatory.

Gupte argued that around 12 audio clips of alleged conversations of the petitioner’s daughter with some unknown individual had been circulated by political events and the media.

Gupte referred to a high court judgment delivered on a petition against media trial in the death case of actor Sushant Singh Rajput that laid down guidelines to be followed by the media while reporting on sensitive cases.

The bench, in its order made out there on Friday, observed that it discovered prima facie substance within the petitioner’s argument and directed the media to scrupulously observe the rules issued by the HC and to not publish or give any pointless publicity to the incident of loss of life of the daughter ‘X’ of the petitioner and additional alleged illicit relationship of the daughter X with Y, the court docket mentioned.