Bombay HC quashes media ban from covering Sohrabuddin case

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday quashed and set aside the ban imposed by Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Court which stopped the media from reporting the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case.

Justice Revati Mohire-Dere, while passing the order in favour of the media, said such restrictions are contrary to law and media cannot be stopped from reporting on an ongoing trial.

She further agreed with the petitioners - a group of court reporters and city-based Union of Journalists - that the Criminal Procedure Code is provided only for the high courts and the Supreme court to issue such ban orders.

Earlier in the month, the top court had asked the Maharashtra government to submit the postmortem report of CBI special judge B H Loya, who had died under mysterious circumstances, asserting that the "matter was very serious."

According to reports, Maharashtra-based journalist B R Lone had filed an independent plea seeking a fair probe into the mysterious death of Justice Loya, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, in which various police officers and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah were named as parties.

On November 29, 2017, when the special CBI Court in Mumbai passed the order against media reportage of the trial, the defence had argued that publishing such details would affect the security of the prosecution lawyers, the accused and the defence team.

The defence pointed out that media reports raising doubts about the death of CBI Judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya, who had presided over the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case till he died, had led to apprehension about the possibility of any untoward incident.