SHILLONG: The Editors’ Guild of India has expressed its concern is regarding the Rajasthan Government’s decision to make the Criminal Laws (Rajasthan Amendment) Ordinance 2017 into an Act in the current legislative session.
The ordinance promulgated by the state government last month was ostensibly done to protect the judiciary and the bureaucracy against false FIRs.
In a statement issued on Monday, the guild said that the ordinance was a pernicious instrument to harass the media, hide wrongful acts by government servants and drastically curb the freedom of the press guaranteed by the Constitution of India.
It has also urged Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to immediately withdraw the ordinance and desist from making it into law as well as to prevent any Act from being passed that would endanger the freedom of the press.
Rather than taking stern measures to prevent and punish those who indulge in frivolous or false litigation, the Rajasthan government has passed an ordinance that is bent on bludgeoning the messenger, the statement said.
While the Guild has always stood for fair, balanced and responsible reporting of FIRs filed in courts of law, it believes that the remedy being employed by the government is draconian and gives it untrammelled power to even imprison journalists for reporting matters of public interest
