Whatsapp ‘leaks’: Buck stops with probe agencies, said courts

NEW DELHI: Hours before Aryan Khan’s bail plea came up for hearing in the Bombay high court on Tuesday, some WhatsApp chats allegedly between Aryan and actor Ananya Panday surfaced in the public domain. It was not known if the chats were genuine and who put them out. But be it the Supreme Court or several high courts, judges have taken a grim view of such ‘leaks’ and have made it clear that the

buck

stops with the probe agency when selective leaks lead to the danger of trial by media and tend to fasten guilt before trial.

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TOI has the chats which were circulated on Tuesday but has decided not to publish them. Last week, the Karnataka high court directed the police to strictly follow guidelines on disclosing details of ongoing investigations to the media. It had also ordered action against erring police officers who had leaked information in a case.




With most investigations now centred around electronic evidence retrieved from mobile phones, laptops and computer hard drives, the courts are being called upon much more to intervene over the leak of such material even before judges have had a chance to examine these as evidence. The SC had in 2018 cautioned in the Bhima-Koregaon case against attempts by probe agencies to tarnish the image of those arrested by leaking selective evidence and had noted that “use of the electronic media by the investigating arm of the state to influence public opinion during pendency of an investigation subverts the fairness of the investigation. The police are not adjudicators nor do they pronounce upon guilt.”



The Delhi HC last year barred city police from circulating any information on allegations and evidence collected against any accused in northeast Delhi riots cases to any person. The HC had stepped in after

Pinjra Tod

activists

Devangana Kalita

and

Natasha Narwal

, arrested in several riot-related cases, had complained that the police were leaking selective information against them to prejudice their case.



Climate activist Disha Ravi, too, had moved the Delhi HC seeking to stop the police from leaking “any probe material” accessed as part of the probe. She alleged police had already declared her guilty by putting out a “biased and defamatory narrative” about her, prompting the court to order the police to stick to their undertaking given in an affidavit that there would be no further leaks. In Kalita’s and Narwal’s cases, the HC had gone so far as to ask concerned crime branch’s DCP to file a personal affidavit to inform the court whether any information had been circulated by crime branch to third persons or journalists.



It had underlined that “selective disclosure of information calculated to sway public opinion to believe that an accused is guilty of the alleged offence; to use electronic or other media to run a campaign to besmirch the reputation or credibility of the person concerned; and to make questionable claims of solving cases and apprehending the guilty while the investigations are at a nascent stage, would be impermissible.” It had said this was “not only because such actions may prejudicially affect a fair trial but also because it may, in some cases, have the effect of stripping the person involved of his/her dignity or subjecting him or her to avoidable ignominy.”

The courts have repeatedly cited a home ministry office order of 2010 to remind probe agencies that they can share information with media only at four stages of the case: at the time of registration, at the time of arrest of the accused, when the chargesheet is filed, and on final conviction or acquittal.