Justice Rohinton Nariman slams BBC documentary ban and IT raids
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New Delhi: Former Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton Nariman on Thursday said raids by Income Tax Department at BBC were ‘ even more unfortunate’ than the Centre’s ban on the documentary, ‘India: The Modi Question’.
Justice Nariman was delivering the inaugural Jitendra Desai Memorial Lecture on ‘Freedom of Speech: Contemporary Challenges’ in Gujarat's Ahmedabad.
Calling internet as ‘hydra-headed’ he highlighted the futility of ban saying that anything removed from one place will emerge elsewhere.
Expanding on the documentary, he said the first part of the BBC documentary was about ‘our present Prime Minister as Chief Minister of the state’ at the time of riot.
He said the second part of the documentary describes‘ our Prime Minister leading the nation today and playing “divisive politics”’, referring to the Citizenship Amendment Act and cow vigilantes.
“Banning something is almost certain to make more people see it than otherwise because you are banning something on the internet which is anyway hydra-headed,” Bar and Bench quoted him as saying.
The use of Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Department in a coercive manner leaves a chilling effect on free speech, the former judge said.
He pointed out that India is at a cross-roads having no Opposition worth the name, adding that print and television media do not criticize the government as they used to.
Recalling his friend and former Union Minister late Arun Jaitley he said the leader stood for freedom of speech unlike others because he was in jail for nineteen months during the emergency.