Guilty till proven innocent

Television news channels have now turned court rooms with fish market cacophony ambiance at prime time, where the politicians are “tried” before a jury of prominent press persons. The principle of jurisprudence where an accused is presumed innocent till proven guilty has now been turned on its head.

The news anchor who presides over this “discussion” has turned judge and television has turned into a masala movie ambiance court where perception matters more than legal niceties.

Politicians and heavy weights like A Raja and Suresh Kalmadi have been deemed guilty by these television courts even before charge sheets have been filed. In the case of A Raja, there was suspicion of him deliberately misusing the telecom ministry for personal benefit, while in case of Kalmadi, there was suspicion that he had manipulated games contracts.

In normal circumstances, with the low moral standards of our politicians, these would never have resigned from their posts and offices. The present political morality is that even prima facie evidence of their involvement in illegal activities is not enough; a minister will resign only when he or she is convicted by a court of law.

Since the process of prosecution and conviction is long and cumbersome, these politicians would have continued in their ministerial office even as the cases drag in the courts of law for years. And they take recourse in saying “let the law take its course and prove me guilty”.

It is this growing frustration in the public minds that have provided fodder for television news channels to hold their daily courts at prime time, and thus generate high TRPs. The tardy judicial process has aptly created an environment of playing accuser, judge and prosecutor.

The result is that resignations have been forced on such tainted politicians by the courts of television by creating sufficient amount of cacophony.

There was a time when the merest whiff of a scandal was considered sufficient for a minister to resign even when there was no evidence to implicate them. Those times are gone and we are now in times of a Shibu Soren who returns back to the union cabinet immediately after securing a bail in a murder case or a Mayawati who continues to be the UP Chief Minister even while facing a disproportionate assets case in the Supreme Court.

And so would Kalamadi and Raja have continued in office it weren’t for the television courts. The latest accused on trial in the television court is Sheila Dixit, the Chief Minister of Delhi.

We have to wait and see how long the judges of television continue with the cacophony!