Supreme Court dismisses investigations into media houses for broadcasting election day polls and influencing investors

New Delhi [India]September 6 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking an inquiry against media houses and their partners/companies for telecasting the exit polls immediately after the conclusion of the final phase of the Lok Sabha elections.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said that the PIL was clearly a political interest litigation.

“The government is already elected. Now let us end the saga of what happens during elections and now get down to the business of governance in the country. The Election Commission will take care of it and we will not run the Election Commission. This is a clear case of litigation for political interest. Dismissed.” The petition demanded an inquiry against media houses and their partners/companies for telecasting the exit polls immediately after the conclusion of the final phase of the Lok Sabha elections and allegedly influencing the investors who suffered a loss of Rs 31 billion when the stock market crashed after the results on June 4.

The application filed in June said that the media houses started debating post-election polls immediately after the conclusion of the final phase of the election on June 1 and tried to convince the common investor to invest in the stock market until the stock market opened on June 3 (Monday), which led to an unexpected rise in the stock market.

The stock market was said to have soared after the election polls, but when the actual results were announced, it crashed.

On June 4, the vote counting took place and the stock market collapsed, resulting in a massive loss of Rs 31 trillion to ordinary investors, said advocate BL Jain, who filed the petition.

The petition, filed through advocate Varun Thakur, said that the loss of Rs 31 trillion due to the downturn in the markets will affect the entire Indian economy and India’s reputation at the global level.

“The broadcast of any news/debate/program must not create an impression of bias or prejudice in favour or against any political party. Unfortunately, uncontrolled and unregulated electronic media functions as a commercial industry and pits one political party against another political party,” the petition said.

The complainant had stated that predictive/post-election polls were in blatant violation of Section 126 A of the Representation of People Act, 1951 and the Election Commission of India guidelines dated 2 April 2024.

It said the government must strictly protect reliable exit polls and debates on matters of public interest.

The petition had demanded an investigation by CBI, ED, CBDT, SEBI and SFIO against Axis My India, India Today Media Plex, Times Now, Independent News Service Private Ltd. (India TV), ABP News Pvt Ltd., Republic Media Network, News National Network Pvt Ltd., TV9 Bharatvarsh and NDTV.

“The Indian Parliament enacted the Representation of People Act in 1951 to facilitate free and fair elections and to regulate the electoral process during elections. However, through exit polls, the media houses in collusion with corporations started manipulating the election results. This practice of the respondents violates the concept of free and fair elections in a democracy and interferes with the rule of law…”, the petition said. (ANI)