Coverage of motorway gang-rape case: LHC suspends PEMRA's notification

LAHORE: A division bench headed by Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday suspended a notification issued by the Pakistan Electronic Media regulatory Authority (PEMRA) regarding ban on the coverage of motorway gang-rape incident in electronic media.

The bench passed the order on a petition by a local television channel Roz News and directed the media not to show the pictures of suspects and the complainant. The Chief Justice also questioned the media coverage of the ministers' press conferences on the gang-rape incident and summoned the record from the PEMRA.

The Chief Justice observed that the right to information of the people could not be usurped. The petitioner's counsel Abuzar Salman Khan Niazi pleaded that the ban was in clear violation of Article 19 of the Constitution which guaranteed the freedom of speech and press. The PEMRA on October 2 had put the impugned ban in compliance with an order passed by an anti-terrorism court.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020