NEW DELHI: In a stinging rebuke to the electronic media, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said that driven by commercial interests, TV channels put national security in jeopardy by their "reckless" 24x7 live telecast of security operations against the 10 terrorists during the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai.

"The shots and visuals that were shown live by TV channels could have also been shown after all the terrorists were neutralized and the security operations were over. But in that case, the TV programmes would not have had the same shrill, scintillating and chilling effect and would not have shot up the TRP ratings of the channels," a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and C K Prasad said.

"It must, therefore, be held that by covering live the terrorists attack on Mumbai in the way it was done, Indian TV channels were not serving any national interest or social cause. On the contrary, they were acting in their own commercial interest, putting national security in jeopardy," it said.

After upholding death penalty to the lone surviving Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab , the bench said the manner in which TV channels competed with each other in showing gory details of the mayhem and operations of security forces greatly harmed their argument that there should be self-regulation and no external censorship.

The apex court said the character and credibility of an institution was tested in times of emergency. "The coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks by the mainstream electronic media has done much harm to the argument that any regulatory mechanism for the media must only come from within."

The bench said it was not possible to find out whether the security forces actually suffered any casualty or injuries on account of the way their operations were telecast live. "But it is beyond doubt that the way their operations were freely shown made the task of the security forces not only exceedingly difficult but also dangerous and risky," it said.

"The reckless coverage of the terrorist attacks by the channels thus gave rise to a situation where on the one hand, the terrorists were completely hidden from the security forces and they had no means to know their exact position or even the kind of firearms and explosives they possessed and on the other hand, the positions of the security forces, their weapons and their operational movements were being watched by the collaborators across the border on TV screens and being communicated to the terrorists," it added.

The court found from the transcripts of conversations between terrorists holed up in Taj Hotel, Oberoi Hotel and Nariman House and their handlers in Pakistan that the terror masterminds were watching the live telecast and got important inputs about the positioning of security forces.

It said there were countless instances to show that the collaborators were watching practically every movement of the security forces which were trying to tackle the terrorists under relentless gunfire and throwing of grenades.

"Apart from the transcripts, we can take judicial notice of the fact that the terrorist attacks at all the places, in the goriest details, were shown live on Indian TV from beginning to end almost non-stop. All the channels were competing with each other in showing the latest developments on a minute-to-minute basis, including the positions and the movements of the security forces engaged in flushing out the terrorists," the court said.

It said no amount of justification citing right to freedom of expression could be acceptable as the manner of coverage was totally wrong. "Freedom of expression, like all other freedoms under Article 19, is subject to reasonable restrictions. An action tending to violate another person's right to life guaranteed under Article 21 or putting national security in jeopardy can never be justified by taking the plea of freedom of speech and expression," the bench said.

dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com