Press Council of India Chairman Justice Markandey Katju said the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government harassed the media if they wrote against it. Katju said the information he had gathered about the media in Bihar was “not good”. Katju’s statement during an interaction at the Senate Hall of Patna University sparked instant protest by the Principal of Patna College, Lalkeshwar Prasad, who left in a huff. At the start of the interaction, he said, “I have heard that the present government established better law and order in Bihar compared to the erstwhile rule of Lalu Prasad…, however press doesn’t enjoy freedom at present.”
He said that if any reporter wrote anything against the government, ministers or officials in the state, pressure was built on the owner and the management of the media house for removing him from service or to transfer him to small towns. “I have been told that people don’t muster courage to write against the Bihar government or its officials,” Katju said, adding that any attack by the state government on the freedom of press was a violation of Section 19 of the Constitution. “You are a government, but you are not above the Constitution… you are below it,” he added.