High Court freezes Press Council order on Daily Star’s ‘professional misconduct’ for six months

The High Court has stayed for six months the Press Council’s order that charged The Daily Star with ‘professional misconduct’.

The stay order also applies to an instruction for The Daily Star to publish the Press Council’s order in full within 15 days, according to the newspaper’s lawyers.

Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury and Justice Md Iqbal Kabir issued the stay order with a rule after hearing a writ petition that challenged the judgment delivered by the Press Council on January 17.

Advocate Shahdeen Malik and Advocate Md Manzur Alam stood for the petitioner while Deputy Attorney General SM Maniruzzaman represented the state party.

“The High Court issued a rule asking why the order issued by the judicial committee of the Press Council should not be declared illegal,” Shahdeen Malik said.

The writ petition was filed with the High Court challenging the Press Council order on Sunday.

The High Court order exempts The Daily Star from fully publishing the Press Council order within 15 days, said Advocate Malik.

The council’s verdict came after a series of hearings on the case filed last year by Prashanta Kumar Majumder, an official of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University or BSMMU against nine stories which the complainant said were “biased and untrue”.

Council Chairman Justice Mamtaz Uddin Ahmed and members Reaz Uddin Ahmed and Sapan Das Gupta came up with the verdict after hearing the case on Oct 19, Nov 7 and Nov 29, 2017.

The response from the newspaper was also taken into consideration in reaching the verdict.

The Press Council observed The Daily Star has breached ‘ethics in journalism’ and performed ‘professional misconduct’.

It also reprimanded the newspaper’s reporter and expected the editor to be more meticulous in publishing such stories.