New Delhi: A lawyer for Ratan Tata has demanded the Supreme Court court issue a notice for"criminal contempt" against The Indian Express for publishing on 10 August contents of a confidential report prepared by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Terming the incident as"theft of court property", Harish Salve, Tata"™s counsel, sought immediate investigation in the matter and prosecution of those found guilty.
The Indian Express"™s legal counsel declined comment, saying"it would be inappropriate to comment on any matter which is under consideration before the court".

The Supreme Court had earlier directed that the tapes containing over 5,000 hours of conversations of Niira Radia with businessmen and politicians be reviewed by CBI for elements of criminality. The report, prepared by a special five-member committee of the federal investigative agency, detailed the issues that required further investigation."We felt if there is criminality involved, causing loss to public exchequer, it must be looked into," said justice G.S. Singhvi, heading the two-judge bench hearing the case.

Parts of this report prepared by CBI and submitted to the court were published by the newspaper even before the court took up the matter.

The court noted that the report had been in possession of selected individuals only, including some in CBI, and yet its contents found their way into a media report. Referring to the documents in the case, justice Singhvi said they had been"opened only in court. All (documents) were in sealed envelope".

Salve said that a criminal investigation was required and an in-house process would not suffice. Public officials had been entrusted with the documents by virtue of their position and the Official Secrets Act had been violated, he said.

K.K. Venugopal, senior advocate assisting the court in the matter, agreed that criminal contempt had been committed, which was a"gross interference with due process of the court" and it is"necessary to investigate from whose hand" the report entered the public domain. He suggested the Central Vigilance Commission be entrusted with the task.

Continuing the attack, Salve said the media has now taken to publishing affidavits and petitions in matters that are yet to be heard by the court. The reporting is often inaccurate, and affidavits and petitions in public interest litigation that are not in public domain are published."If someone has filed an affidavit, it is not in public domain," he argued.

Taking note, justice Singhvi remarked,"Nobody"™s reputation should be tarnished before the matter is decided by the court".

A specialist in media law said the issue wasn"™t as black and white as was being made out to be.

Without commenting on the specifics of this case, Apar Gupta said a court registry can be considered a public office and documents filed with it"as indeed the CBI committee"™s was"can be considered open for public disclosure. The rule, he added, was"for open courts" with a"restriction on publication" being the exception and not the norm. Still, he said,"if the documents are filed in a sealed cover, then publication would automatically give rise to contempt proceedings".

There is no explicit bar on the publication of petitions and affidavits, he added.

The next hearing in the matter will take place on 27 August.