Chhattisgarh government has formed a high-level coordination committee under General Administration Department Secretary to protect the rights of journalists in the wake of recent instances of cases lodged against them.
To uphold the tradition of independent and unbiased journalism, Chief Minister Raman Singh has taken a major step by issuing necessary guidelines to Home (Police) department, an official statement said here today.
As per the circular, a high-level coordination committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of General Administration Department (GAD) Secretary, for establishing necessary coordination between government and journalists in such cases.
"The circular states that the criminal cases frequently lodged against journalists and their arrests, raises questions on the freedom of journalism. Government has received a number of complaints that police personnel harass journalists and often criminal cases are lodged against them out of malice," the release said.
According to the circular, Director of Public Relations (DPR) department would collect complaints of harassment of scribes and forward it to Deputy Inspector General of Police (Complaint) posted at Police Headquarters here.
Subsequently, after taking the complaints received from DPR into account, police headquarters would take necessary action in the cases and inform DPR about the same, it said.
Before lodging complaint against any media representative, concerned SP and Regional Deputy IG would personally review the evidences available against them.
In this way, it would be ensured that no cases are lodged against journalists out of malice, the statement added.
