Foreign citizens as editors of Indian newspapers – Delhi HC refuses relief in PIL filed by Subramanian Swamy

Refusing to grant relief in a Public Interest Litigation challenging foreign citizens being Editors of Indian newspapers, the Delhi High Court ruled that it would not “legislate” on this matter and that the issue was squarely the prerogative of the Parliament..The decision was rendered by a Division Bench comprising Justices Pradeep Nadrajog and V Kameshwar Rao in a writ petition filed by Dr. Subramanian Swamy (Dr. Subramanian Swamy v. The Registrar, Office of Registrar of Newspapers of India, WP(C) 2989/2013)..Swamy, in his petition, had stated that although the provisions of the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 (Act) only mandated the editor to be a person “ordinarily resident” in India, the pending Press and Registration of Books and Publications Bill, 2011 (Bill) required the editor to be a citizen of India as well as an ordinary resident of the country. He had, therefore, contended that an omission in the statute can be inferred by the Court and can be rectified by resorting to the Doctrine of ‘Casus Omissus’ since the new Bill for enactment introduced in 2011 in Parliament was pending passage..Additional Solicitor General Rajeeve Mehra, who represented the Union Government, had contended that this was not a fit case for “purposive construction” considering the fact that a Bill to give effect to the prayer made by Swamy was pending passage by the Parliament..Swamy had also challenged the foreign citizenship of The Hindu’s previous editor Siddharth Varadarajan. However, since Varadarajan had resigned from The Hindu, the issue was no longer considered leaving the Court to decide the larger issue of “purposive construction” of the relevant provision of the Act..The Court had reserved its judgment on November 8 this year.