New Delhi, Dubbing the media as a "super-super investigative agency" for reports on the murder of Noida girl Aarushi, the Supreme Court Wednesday rued "irretrievable damage" done to her parents through some media reports.

"This is unthinkable in a democracy," it added.

A bench of Justices B.N. Agarwal, V.S. Sirpurkar and G.S. Singhvi made the remark while hearing two lawsuits seeking a high-level probe into the allegation that several retired and sitting judges, including those of higher judiciary, had been beneficiaries of fraudulent withdrawal of over Rs.70 million from the Ghaziabad district court's treasury.

The bench rebuked the media for causing "irretrievable" damage to the image of Aarushi's parents, dentists Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, through reports.

Many media reports were allegedly based on unproven information dished out by some police officers as findings of their probe into the sensational murder case.

The bench's remarks came while it was hearing arguments as to which investigative agency, the Uttar Pradesh Police or the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), be asked to probe the court treasury fraud.

"Mr. solicitor, do you know of any investigative agency, which is more powerful than even the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing)?" asked the bench.

"If some high-profile person is involved in some case, you (media) will run the show the whole day," the bench observed.

"Irretrievable damage has been done to the couple who lost their only child. This is unthinkable in a democracy," it added.

Aarushi, 14, was found murdered in her parents' upscale Jalvayu Vihar apartment in Noida May 16. The Noida police immediately named domestic help Hemraj as the prime suspect but retracted the next day when his body was found on the roof of the apartment.

The police arrested Rajesh Talwar May 23, saying he killed his daughter in a fit of rage because he objected to her closeness with domestic help Hemraj. Talwar was released July 11 after 50 days of imprisonment, with the CBI saying there was no evidence to link him to the crime.

The bench added media reports would never influence their "judicially trained mind".

"Media people must know that we have our trained judicial mind. It does not affect the judicial mind - right from those of munsif magistrates to high court judges and above," it observed.

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