I will begin by saying that law has minimal role as far as media is concerned in India. Virtually one can get away with murder while publishing. Though there is a registrar of newspaper whose permission is required to bring out a newspaper or a magazine but till you don’t break the law no one will notice.
There was a time when one depended on government for newsprint but now it is freely available. Except writing against national security or something grossly in bad taste from moral point of view the police doesn’t bother.
There is a plethora of magazines which can be easily termed as obscene are freely sold. There is no specific law against defaming somebody. Only the law of the land prevails. There has never been a sentence for defaming somebody.
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I am reminded of only one case when the then Illustrated Weekly of India wrote nasty things about the then chief minister of Orissa J.B. Patnaik but got away by publishing an apology. There is a full-fledged copyright law and there have been many cases for its infringement but generally they end up in out of court of settlement.
Yes there is one area where the law of land is very strict and that is about the rights of working journalist which pertains to their wages and working conditions. Many employers break those laws but more often than not they have to pay compensations.
There is something called censorship but only cases like emergency. However the experience of 1975 emergency, no political party has thought or would dare to think of imposing emergency again in this country and particularly on the press.
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There is one exception and that is judiciary who is very sensitive towards its criticism and has hauled up many senior journalists asking them to apologies which they dutifully complied with.