CAN THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION BE RESTRICTED ON MERE APPREHENSION OF THE TRANSMISSION OF CORONA?

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Dealing with the issue the Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed the petition filed against the exemption so granted by the Central Government to the Print Media and Electronic Media by the virtue of Notification dated 24th March 2020 Notification No. 40-3/2020.

Case details:

Case Name:  T. Ganesh Kumar vs. Union of India & Ors.

Case No.:  WP No. 7457/2020

Bench: Justice N. Kirubakaran and Justice R. Hemalatha

Key Points:

  • According to the PIL filed by the petitioner states that disease Coronavirus has the capacity of spreading through a large community using the medium like a newspaper, on which they can survive for about 4 days.
  • According to him if the newspaper is published and sent to the readers then there are chances of it spreading to a large number of people like if the distributing boy has got infected with the disease there are chances that the particles of virus get transmitted through the newspaper to readers, and therefore the exemption so given to the print media was challenged.
  • The petitioner based his arguments based on several research studies namely, “Persistence of coronaviruses on inanimate surfaces and their inactivation with biocidal agents” by Mr. G. Kampf; also “Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1” bythe New England Journal of medicine dated 17th March 2020, both the research papers specified that the Corona Virus can live for up to 4 to 5 days on papers and almost 24 days on any cardboard medium. And therefore based on the study he asked for obtaining interim restraining order for the print media from publishing and distributing Newspapers.
  • Against which the respondent argued that there is not enough research study so far done and there is no conclusive report proving such statements.
  • Also, it was argued that the Right to Information is the Fundamental Right under Article 19(1)(a) and restricting the working of print media would be a violation of this fundamental right of citizens.
  • Respondent further argued stating the same research from the petitioner which states that the transmission through newspapers is least out of other sources of transmission and that can be stopped if after reading proper precautions are taken.

Madras High Court views:

The High Court while dismissing the petition stated that from the records and Media reports it can be said that spreading the virus through Newspapers or any paper medium is very least, and as has been pointed by the respondent that the study on this point is very limited and conclusions are drawn based on primary research and without any statistical data.

Therefore it was observed that “Mere apprehension or least probability cannot be a ground to prohibit the publication of newspapers as it would amount to a violation of the Fundamental Rights, of not only the publisher, editor but also the readers, guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India.

Source: Livelaw.in