The High Court yesterday once again cautioned the media about preparing and publishing reports on its proceedings, saying the news reports must be authentic and true.
"The media must present the true pictures [of court proceedings]. If they make false reports, a wrong message will go to people and they will have a confusing idea about the court."
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There are some legal terms in the court proceedings and those terms need to be used in the reporting. The newsmen should have some knowledge about it, the bench said.
The court made the comments as few media outlets have recently published reports claiming that this bench advised a lawyer to file a writ petition with the HC regarding the reported loan scam of Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited.
"When the lawyer came to us and drew our attention to the Islami Bank's reported loan scam for passing order. We just asked him [the lawyer] to come [move a prayer] in a proper form [way]. But few media outlets published reports saying that we have advised the lower to file a writ petition. These reports are totally false as we did not advise anyone to file a writ petition. This court is not a consultancy firm that will give advice to anybody to file a petition," Justice Nazrul Islam Talukder said.
The bench also said, "We must talk against corruption and the corrupt people. We are not in favour of anybody. We are neutral and in favour of the law."
The bench heard statements from the Law Reporters Forum's (LRF) President Ashutosh Sarkar and its General Secretary Ahammed Sarwar Hossain Bhuiyan on this issue and asked them to convey the court's message to its members and other court reporters.
LRF President Ashutosh Sarkar expressed sorrow for the mistakes of some media outlets, saying that the LRF members are very much conscious about reporting on the Supreme Court proceedings.
But few media outlets ran distorted reports regarding the HC bench's comment, which is a human error, he said, adding that the LRF members will be informed of the court's message.
