Decks for the telecast of a TV crime show allegedly based on teachers recruitment scam in Haryana were today cleared by the Supreme Court today with a caveat that there should be no reference to convicted persons including former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and 54 others.
Some of the convicted persons including Chautala had sought a direction to restrain Multi Screen Media Pvt Ltd, subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Television in India, from airing the episode of its programme 'Crime Patrol Dastak' in which the story based on the scam was to feature.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir also said the programme should not indicate that Chautala and others have been convicted in the Junior Basic Trained (JBT) teachers scam of the year 2000.
"The channel should make effort to camouflage the actual characters in the serial," the bench, also comprising justices A R Dave and Vikramajit Sen, said.
The apex court passed directions while dismissing the appeal filed by Chautala and other convicts against the order of a division bench of the Delhi High Court which had set aside the order of its single judge bench restraining telecast of the TV show.
The bench had earlier wanted to know from the channel whether it was willing to delete the use of certain words like bribe etc in the script which has been objected to by Chautala and others.
Senior advocate Harish Salve, who was appearing for Multi Screen Media Pvt Ltd, had said "there would be no allusion or innuendo to bribe" in the show.
