KATHMANDU, Dec 27:Two online news portals, sushashannews.com and muldhar.com, moved the Patan High Court on Tuesday, challenging the recent order of the Metropolitan Police Range (MPR) of Nepal Police to reveal news sources in relation to news reports on the the erroneous performance evaluation report submitted to Supreme Court by former Deputy Inspector General of Nepal Police Nawaraj Silwal.
Madan Bhandari and Ravisingh Dhami filed the writ petition at the High Court representing White Star Media Pvt. Ltd and New Media Pvt. Ltd, respectively.
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Claiming that the police order over the news report about the performance evaluation report of Silwal who was recently elected a Member of the House of Representatives from Lalitpur-1 on a CPN UML ticket was a kind of attack on the media, they filed the petition at the High Court.
The government's Chief Secretary Lok Darshan Regmi, Office of the Attorney General, Nepal Police Headquarters, Inspector General of Police Prakash Kumar Aryal, Ministry of Home Affairs, MPR (Crime Investigation Branch) Teku and Nepal Telecom have been named as the defendants in the petition.
Claiming that the act of the defendants has grossly violated the constitutionally ensured right to the electronic media as per Article 19 (2) of the Constitution, they have demanded immediate stay order from the high court against the move of the MPR.
Stating that the security of news source is essential for the credibility of the media and therefore it must be maintained secretly, the petitioners have said that the move of the defendants is against this code of conduct for journalists.
