The Supreme Court on Tuesday criticised the practice of “sealed cover jurisprudence” by governments during two separate hearings, The Hindu reported.
Under this practice, the government and its agencies submit documents in sealed envelopes to the judges. The contents of the documents are not shared with the opposite party. The practice is carried out on the grounds that the contents are highly sensitive in nature or can affect national security or public order, according to The Hindu.
Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, while hearing a criminal appeal filed by a man against the Bihar government, refused to accept documents in a sealed cover.
“Don’t give any sealed covers, keep it with you, I don’t want any sealed cover,” Justice Ramana said, according to Live Law.
In another case related to the ban Malayalam news channel MediaOne TV, a bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud said that it will look into the validity of relying on “sealed covers” during hearings.
“I am very averse to what is called the ‘sealed cover jurisprudence’,” Justice Chandrachud said.
In the MediaOne case, the Kerala High Court had on March 2 upheld the Centre’s ban on the news channel citing national security. The High Court judges had said that certain confidential files provided by the Centre had convinced them that the channel posed a threat to national security.
The channel then approached the Supreme Court, which directed the Centre to produce the files based on which it had refused to renew the licence of MediaOne TV. After examining the files, the court granted a stay on the ban.
The court told the Centre that reasons have to be disclosed to the channel so that they can defend themselves, Live Law reported. “What is the difficulty in disclosing the files?” Justice Chandrachud asked.
Justice Chandrachud said that were however some exceptions, like in cases involving child sexual abuse where the court does not want parties to see the files. He also asked senior lawyers to assist him in looking further into this practice.
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