Prachi Singh, BA LLB, Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida
ABSTRACT
The role of media is one of extreme importance in moulding people’s opinion and as well as in encouraging and allowing them to directly participate in the state affairs which is the basic essence of democracy, and which undoubtedly is the main reason why Edmund Burke- has named media as the “fourth estate” of a democratic nation. The media inextricably links the people from the executive, legislature and judiciary, thereby promoting transparency and accountability in the institutional setup and helps these institutions to understand and examine the public response to the actions taken by them while discharging their duties. Media is quite capable of changing the whole viewpoint through which the people perceive various events, this power of theirs if remains unchecked and unaccountable for is quite detrimental to the national and individual interests. One such example of uncontrolled discharge of freedom by media is them usurping the function of judiciary via pre-trial publicities which directly prejudices the interests of the parties involved thereto and thereby leading to miscarriage of justice. The paper attempts to assess the impacts of media trial over various facets including fair trial, and the balance between freedom of press and Independence of Judiciary.
Keywords: Media trial, prejudicial, fair trial, open justice, freedom of press, Administration of justice, sub- judice.
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