Media performs 'public function': What Delhi HC judgment means for press freedom, right to privacy

📌 Summary:

• A two-judge Delhi High Court bench (Justices C Hari Shankar and O P Shukla) ruled that private media houses perform a "public function" and can face writ petitions in High Courts for violating an individual's right to privacy — an extension of the "horizontal application" of fundamental rights

• The court upheld a 2013 single-judge order directing TV Today Network to pay Rs 5 lakh compensation for a 2005 broadcast that disclosed identifying details (father's name and designation, address board, house visuals, mother's voice) of a minor victim of sexual assault, despite the mother's explicit refusal to interact with the crew

• Legal basis: under Article 226, High Courts can issue writs against the State or authorities discharging public duties; the court reasoned that the media's role in disseminating news and shaping public opinion is so central to society that it constitutes a public function carrying a duty not to injure the public's rights

• Precedent: the Supreme Court's 2023 Kaushal Kishor Constitution Bench judgment established that certain fundamental rights can be enforced horizontally against private actors; the Delhi HC has now applied that specifically to the right to privacy against the press

• Implications: could shift media litigation from civil courts (slow damages suits) to constitutional courts (writ jurisdiction); experts call it a "logical corollary" to Kaushal Kishor but caution about implications for press freedom if writ courts routinely police journalism

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS2 Polity — horizontal vs vertical application of fundamental rights, Article 226 writ jurisdiction, right to privacy (Puttaswamy lineage) vs freedom of the press (Article 19(1)(a)); balance between two fundamental rights

📝 Prelims Facts:

• Article 226: High Courts can issue writs for fundamental rights AND "for any other purpose" — wider than the Supreme Court's Article 32
• Kaushal Kishor case (2023, Constitution Bench): certain fundamental rights enforceable horizontally against non-State actors
• Horizontal application = citizen enforcing fundamental rights against private entities; vertical = against the State

🔑 Key Term: Horizontal application of fundamental rights — enforcement of fundamental rights against private (non-State) actors, as opposed to the traditional vertical enforcement against the State