Does media activism influencing judiciary result in travesty of justice?

Personal Notes

TV-ndtv.Big-Fight:

Recording for this weekend’s Big Fight anchored by Vikram Chandra:

Guest-desk coordinators – Suad Hassan: not really from the guest-desk – but a researcher, editor and co-producer of Big Fight with Vikram Chandra: telephone—9891436395: email— suadh@ndtv.com.

Topic: "Does media activism influence judiciary resulting in travesty of justice".
Co-panellists: Very high profile galaxy of panellists - that included...
**Ram Jetmalani - former law minister and the country's most high profile, prominent and very controversial lawyer;
**Retd Justice RS Sodhi of Delhi High Court who convicted the accused in most high profile criminal cases over the last two/three years - the accused who had been acquitted of murder charges earlier by the Sessions Court;
**me, Maxwell Pereira, retired from the police;
** KTS Tulsi – Legal luminary, prominent and livewire Supreme Court lawyer

**Colin Gonsalves – another prominent and articulate Supreme Court lawyer – a human rights activist too;
**Neelam Krishnamurty - who over the last twelve years relentlessly built up public opinion in the media to pursue the Uphaar Cinema fire tragedy case in which about 37 people (including two of her own two teenaged children lost their lives);
**Prof SAR Gilani – who was one of the accused in the 2003 terrorist attack on Indian Parliament, convicted and sentenced to undergo jail term by the Sessions Court, but later acquitted by the High Court;
**Sabrina Lal – the sister of Jessica Lal whose murder and then the acquittal of the murderers - both poiticians' sons - had shocked the nation enough for a public outcry and a sustained media campaign leading to his conviction in the High Court by the very same co-panellist Justice Sodhi; and finally.....
**Karandeep Singh – the son of accused on death-row, GS Pandher, in the most infamous multiple murder case of NOIDA where Pandher and his servant Koli lured, raped and butchered (also ate the flesh of victims) young girls and minors - lured for sex from the nearby slums; whose bones in gunny sacks were recovered from the adjacent nullah (gutter).... Total minors and girls killed estimated to be over 38.

The hour long discussions were vibrant, volatile and tense – with Sodhi and Jetmalani trapped in a ring with a one to one unhealthy spat that shd not have happened – with the media and the police under attack for alleged collusion and connivance to "send innocents" to the gallows – enough provocation to excite me appropriately. Enjoyed the challenge and was satisfied with my own responses, even though it's me that's saying it. Will have to wait till the weekend though, to see what the edited final package of this programme is, when it is finally telecast end of this week.