The court affirmed the necessity of respecting privacy rights during investigations and clarified that witnesses cannot be compelled to testify, allowing for grievances to be addressed by the High Court.

ORDER :

VIKRAM NATH, J.

1. Permission to file SLP is granted in SLP (C) D. No. 55412 of 2024.

2. These are petitions assailing the correctness of the orders dated 10.09.2024 and 14.10.2024 passed by Division Bench of the High Court of Kerala in Writ Appeal No. 1248 of 2024 and other connected matters. The petitioners are basically aggrieved by some of the directions/observations contained in the order dated 14.10.2024.

3. Before proceeding further to consider the submissions made, brief background of the facts giving rise to the present petitions is as follows:

3.1. On the request of an organisation by the name of Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), the Government of Kerala in 2017 constituted a committee comprising of a retired Judge of the High Court, Justice K. Hema (Chairperson), actor T. Sharda and a retired bureaucrat, Ms. Basala Kumari as members to study the issues raised therein primarily dealing with the working conditions, welfare and the hardship being faced by the women in the Malayalam Cinema Industry. The above committee has been referred to as ‘Hema Committee’ in the proceedings before the High Court as also before this Court.

3.2. The Hema Committee submitted its report on 31.12.2019 to the State Government. Apparently, no action was taken on the recommendations made by the Hema Committee for a substantial period. Certain activists had been requesting for a copy of the report under the Right to Information Act, 2005, which request was denied.

3.3. The petitioner Sajimon Parayil in SLP (Civil) Nos. 25250-25251 of 2024 filed a Writ Petition (Civil) No. 26497 of 2024 before the Single Judge of the Kerala High Court, primarily praying for the relief that the Hema Committee report be not made public as it would be violating privacy rights and would also breach confidentiality in particular to those who have testified before the said Committee. The Single Judge, vide order dated 13.08.2024, dismissed the writ petition on the finding that the petitioner therein had no locus. Aggrieved by the same a writ appeal was preferred which was registered as WA No. 1248 of 2024.

3.4. Before the Division Bench of the High Court several other petitions were filed praying for directions to the State to produce the Hema Committee report and to act upon it, as according to the said petitioners, the committee had made recommendations which, if implemented, would bring about greater safety & security of women working in Cinema Industry in Kerala and also help in improving their working conditions and betterment of their welfare. All these writ petitions, along with the writ appeal, were clubbed together and the Division Bench started monitoring the implementation of the recommendations of the Hema Committee report.

3.5. Learned Advocate General appearing for the State of Kerala before the Division Bench, on 10.09.2024 produced the report in a sealed cover which the Court required the learned Advocate General to retain with him in safe custody to be produced at a later stage. Further, the Division Bench approved Special Investigating Team ¹ [SIT] constituted by the Director General of Police comprising of seven members headed by Inspector General and the Commissioner of Police, Thiruvananthapuram City and further supervised by the Additional Director General of Police, Crime Branch.

3.6. In the order dated 10.09.2024, it was recorded that the SIT would be investigating into the complaints received in the recent past after the publication of the Hema Committee report in its redacted form. The Division Bench also noticed that the State had not taken the matter any further and in fact no action had been taken till the constitution of the SIT on 25.08.2024. After recording displeasure at the i