Discussions and debates on TV channels on matters related to ongoing criminal trials amount to “direct interference of criminal justice”, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday, reported Live Law.

“All matters relating to the crime and whether a particular thing happens to be a conclusive piece of evidence must be dealt with by a court of law and not through a TV channel,” a bench of Justices UU Lalit and PS Narsimha said.

The bench’s observations came in a judgement in a case in which the court acquitted four people accused of dacoity and murder as the prosecution had failed to establish chain of circumstances leading to the crime, reported Bar and Bench.

The case dates back to October 28, 1999, when an elderly woman was killed and her gold ornaments stolen in Bengaluru. While a trial court had handed over death penalty to the accused persons, the Karnataka High Court sentenced them to life imprisonment, the Hindustan Times reported.

The Supreme Court Bench, however, found “disturbing features” in the case.

The bench noted that a Digital Video Disc, or DVD, in which a confession was made to the investigating officer in the case, was played in the trial court, based on which it passed its verdict, Live Law reported. The Supreme Court found that the confession was given to a police officer and that it was in violation of the principles of the Indian Evidence Act.

According to Section 26 the Act, the confession made by an accused person to the police cannot be considered evidence till it is made in the presence of a magistrate.

The Bench also observed that prosecuting agencies have the tendency of recording only the parts of the statement that could lead to discovery of facts, instead of the whole statement. This too is in violation of the Indian Evidence Act, it said.

“Such kind of statements may have a direct tendency to influence and prejudice the mind of the court,” the bench said. “In the present case, the trial court not only extracted the entire statements but also relied upon them.”

The court also said that the same DVD was played during a programme on Kannada channel Udaya TV.

“Allowing the said DVD to go into the hands of a private TV channel so that it could be played and published in a programme is nothing but dereliction of duty and direct interference in the administration of justice,” the bench observed. “The public platform is not a place for such debate or proof of what otherwise is the exclusive domain and function of the courts of law.”

The Supreme Court said that the prosecution had relied on circumstantial evidence as it acquitted the accused men.