2023 Supreme(SC) 973
D. Y. CHANDRACHUD, PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, MANOJ MISRA
People’s Union for Civil Liberties – Appellant
Versus
State of Maharashtra – Respondent
Advocates:
Advocate Appeared:
For the Appellants : Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Dhiraj, Ashutosh Dubey, Anshu Vachher, Akshat Vachher, Abhiti Vachher, P.N. Puri, Prashant Bhushan, Aditya Sharma, Apurba Pattanayak, Parekh, Sumita Hazarika, Ruchi Kohli.
For the Respondents: Shobha Gupta, Aditya Ranjan, Jessy Kurian, Tarjana Rai, Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Bharat Bagla, Sourav Singh, Aditya Krishna, T.A. Khan, Wasim Quadri, Ruchi Kohli, Chinmayee Chandra, Swarupama Chaturvedi, Arvind Kumar Sharma, Diksha Rai, Ragani Pandey, Arunabh Choudhury, Pragya Baghel, Jayant Mohan, D.S. Mahra, Anil K. Chopra, Anil Shrivastav, P.V. Yogeswaran, Guntur Prabhakar, Monika Gusain, Suvarna Singh, Sanjay Kumar Visen, Sumita Hazarika, Amit Anand Tiwari, Devyani Gupta, Tanvi Anand, Samir Ali Khan, D. Mahesh Babu, Jatinder Kumar Bhatia, Krishnam Mishra, Param Kumar Mishra, T. Mahipal, Gopal Singh, M.R. Shamshad, Manish Kumar, Shaswati Parhi, Ravi Shanker Jha, Ranjan Mukherjee, Sharmila Upadhyay, Sarvjit Pratap Singh, G. Indira, Abhisth Kumar, Ashok Kumar Singh, Hemantika Wahi, Shuvodeep Roy, Deepayan Dutta, Chanchal Kumar Ganguli, Praveen Agrawal, Mukesh Kumar Maroria, M. Shoeb Alam, Karanjawala, Tulika Mukherjee, Sudarshan Rajan, Sunny Choudhary, V.K. Verma, Rajat Srivastav, T.C. Kaushik, Tarun Verma, Rajat Arora, Shibashish Misra, Hrishikesh Baruah, Saumitra Srivastava, Radhika Gupta, Ruchira Goel, Rajiv Kumar Sinha, Raj Kumar, Kapil Sahni, Sabarish Subramanian, Vishnu Unnikrishnan, C. Kranthi Kumar, Naman Dwivedi, Danish Saifi, Vanshaja Shukla, Rachana Gandhi, Saurabh Trivedi, Ashutosh Kumar Sharma, Abbas, Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar, Karun Shrama, Abhinav Mukerji, Raghvendra Kumar, Anand Kumar Dubey, Jainendra Ojha, Simanta Kumar, Pradeep Misra, Daleep Dhyani, Manoj Kumar Sharma, Suraj Singh, Bhuwan Chandra, Ashok Panigrahi, Merusagar Samantaray, Swarupama Chaturvedi, Subhasish Mohanty, Jaspreet Gogia, K. Enatoli Sema, G. Prakash, M. Yogesh Kanna, Pragati Neekhra, Arvind H.S., Arputham Aruna V.K. Sharma, V.N. Raghupathy, M.K. Maroria, Ruchi Kohli, Krishnanand Pandey, Aravindh S.
ORDER :
1. This batch of cases raises two significant issues:
(i) The procedure to be followed by the police in investigating police encounters.
(ii) The propriety and procedure of media briefings by police personnel.
2. The first issue, governing police encounters, has since been dealt with in the judgment of this Court dated 23 September 2014 in People’s Union for Civil Liberties vs. State of Maharashtra, (2014) 10 SCC 635.
3. The second issue pertains to the modalities to be followed by the police in conducting media briefings where a criminal investigation for an alleged offence is in progress. The issue assumes significance, particularly, in the context of the manner in which media reportage takes place, particularly in crimes involving a degree of public interest.
4. Having regard to the ramifications of the issues involved, the Court appointed Mr. Gopal Sankaranarayanan, senior counsel, as Amicus Curiae.
5. A questionnaire was circulated by the Amicus Curiae in order to elicit information from the States and Union Territories. Several States, including the States of Bihar, Goa, Haryana, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand have responded, besides the Administrations o
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