The Supreme Court on Monday stayed a complaint filed by the All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union (AMWJU) and Editors’ Guild of Manipur (EGM) against Editors’ Guild of India (EGI) regarding the fact-finding report on Manipur crisis.
Mention may be made that the two apex media bodies of the state had filed two defamation cases against the EGI fact finding team alleging the report as motivated allegations based on hearsay.
The Supreme Court reportedly stayed the case following a writ petition submitted by three members of the fact finding team and EGI president.
The three-membered crowdfunded EGI Fact Finding Team, following requests from the Army, came to Manipur to look into the Media’s reportage of the conflict that broke out on May 3, 2023 and to report on the ground situation in the strife-torn state. The team consisted of Seema Guha, Sanjay Kapoor and Bharat Bhushan.
With only three-days stay in the state and a brief meeting with AMWJU, MHJU and EGM members at Manipur Press Club, the fact finding team, in their report charged allegations stating that Imphal-based media are biased, branding as ‘Meitei Media’.
Decrying the report, AMWJU and EGM issued a rebuttal urging EGI to issue a clarification and also served a legal notice. However, instead of amending the erroneous mistakes, the EGI published AMWJU and EGM’s report on its website, which led the two apex media bodies to file a criminal defamation case at CJM Imphal East.
Following which, CJM Imphal East issued an order dated June 25, 2024 informing the three EGI members and President Seema Mustafa to arrive and give a clarification by July 15, 2024. In spite of the CJM IE’s order, they filed a Writ Petition (Criminal) case no 354/2024 in the Supreme Court.
As such, the Apex Court issued an order dated September 6, 2024 to the State of Manipur, Union of India and President of All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union (AMWJU) to give a response within three weeks, thereby staying the defamation case filed by Chief Judicial Magistrate, Imphal East (CJM, IE).
EGI members Seema Guha, Sanjay Kapoor, Bharat Bhushan and EGI president Seema Mustafa, filed the WPC through their counsels. The respondent party are State of Manipur (Through Secretary, Department of Home, Manipur), Union of India (Through Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, GoI) and AMWJU President Bijoy Kakchingtabam.
The Apex Court’s order stayed the Complaint Case No 5 of 2024, which was filed by AMWJU President, Bijoy Kakchingtabam through his counsel at CJM, IE against the three EGI members including its President Seema Mustafa.
AMWJU president Bijoy Kakchingtabam, in a prayer through his counsel, pointed out that the EGI fact finding team visited the state from August 7 to 10, 2023, acting on a statement issued by Army GOC general staff (Information Warfare) Col. Anurag Pandey on July 12, 2023.
However, upon their return, the ‘self-claimed’ three-membered EGI Fact Finding Committee published a report entitled ‘Media’s reportage of the ethnic violence in Manipur’ on September 2, 2023, which later went viral on social media.
The EGI’s report distorted the image of Manipur Media to the World and charged allegations of being biased in its reports on the crisis. The EGI report, based on hearsay, also had many contentions and wrong representations apparently favouring just one community.
AMWJU and EGM wrote a letter to EGI to rectify the report and withdraw the allegations, but no such thing was done. Condemning EGI’s reprehensible actions, the two apex media bodies of the state termed the actions as Criminal act)/offence and appealed to the Court to issue warrant of arrest, to take up necessary legal actions under Indian Penal Code section 499 and section 500, award befitting punishments to those involved and to pass any orders that the Court may deem fit.
