‘Evil consequences likely to occur’: Allahabad HC stays broadcast of Al Jazeera documentary on India

The Allahabad High Court yesterday placed an interim stay on the broadcast of an Al Jazeera documentary in India in view of potential “evil consequences that are likely to occur” after its broadcast. 

The documentary in question is titled India: Who Lit The Fuse. Its contents are unclear. The high court is presently hearing a public interest litigation in the matter.

The PIL was filed by an “activist”named Sudhir Kumar who alleged he has “reliably learnt from print and social media reports that the film portrays Muslim minority of living with a sense of fear and presents a disruptive narrative creating a sense of public hatred, which is far from reality”.

According to Livelaw, the high court bench of Justices Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Ashutosh Srivastava asked the ministry of information and broadcasting and Al Jazeera to file their responses in the matter by July 6, the next date of hearing. Since Al Jazeera wasn’t represented in court and the film wasn’t available for the bench’s perusal, the court directed Sudhir Kumar to serve Al Jazeera within the next 48 hours.

But in the meanwhile, the court directed the central government to “take appropriate measures...to ensure that the film is not allowed to be telecast/broadcast unless its contents are examined by authorities”. 

The court said it had considered the “seriousness” of Kumar’s allegations “which are likely to have far-reaching consequences”, and noted that freedom of speech and expression is “subject to the reasonable restrictions imposed by Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India”.

The case harks back to the controversy over BBC’s documentary on Narendra Modi. In January, the Modi government used emergency provisions under the IT Act to order YouTube and Twitter to take down links to the two-part series which, among other things, scrutinised alleged Modi’s role in the Gujarat riots. Read about the documentary here.