Delhi Gangrape: HC lifts 'gag' order, media to follow trial

New Delhi, March 22: The brutal gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student in the national capital on December 16, 2012 is a closely watched case by media houses across India.

However, media was barred from covering day-to-day trial of the case. On Friday (March 22), Delhi High Court has lifted the ban.

"The court will allow access to one representative journalist of each of the accredited national dailies. The petitioners before me represent some of them," the order said.

Earlier, journalists had sought an open trial instead of an in-camera one. Justice Rajiv Shakdher directed the fast track court to allow one reporter from each media house to attend the trial.

"The Delhi High Court has put safeguards in place and allowed one journalist from an accredited national news daily to sit in court proceedings of the 16 December gang-rape case," said Dayan Krishnan, the special prosecutor in the trial. "We are fine with that because of the safeguards."

"The court has also put restrictions on what can be reported by the journalist. They cannot report anything about the victim or her family, which is what we were worried about," Krishnan explained.

A gang of six men raped and assaulted the victim and her friend in a moving bus, before throwing them out on the streets to die. The trial of four accused are currently going on at a fast track court in Delhi. One of the accused Ram Singh has recently committed suicide in Tihar jail. The sixth accused has been declared as a juvenile. He is being tried by a Juvenile Justice court in Delhi.

OneIndia News