A five-judge constitution bench reserved its judgement after 17 days of hearing which started on March 27.
The bench was told that the apex court did not have inherent powers to lay the guidelines on the issue which falls in the domain of legislature.
At best the judiciary can come out with "normative" and not "mandatory" or "exhaustive" guidelines as it would "clash" with the fundamental rights of the scribes.
However, the bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia, which was facing opposition from noted jurists, Fali Nariman and Soli Sorabjee, wanted to know "can't we come out with some principles (on regulating the media)".
"If we come to a conclusion that there are principles settled by earlier judgements, we can enumerate them in our judgement. You can call it either guidelines, regulations or principles.
"If we don't do that who or which institution will do," the bench, also comprising justices D K Jain, S S Nijjar, Ranjana Prakash Desai and J S Khehar said.
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The bench got a negative reply from Nariman who said "no, you can't do". He also said when he had filed the application on the issue he was under the impression that the matter was limited to dispute between Sahara Group and SEBI.
The noted jurist said when the ambit of the matter expanded he thought of withdrawing the application which he had filed after a privileged note by him to SEBI was leaked to a TV channel. (More) PTI AAC RKS
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