New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked three central ministries and others including Press Council of India (PCI) to respond to a PIL seeking framing of guidelines to regulate contents of television channels.
A bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi issued notices to ministries of Information and Broadcasting, Law and Justice and Communications & Information Technology.
Besides them, PCI, Election Commission, News Broadcasters Association, Indian Broadcasting Foundation and Advertising Standards Council of India have also been asked to respond to the PIL which has been filed by Hindu Janjagruti Samiti, a registered public charitable trust, through its Mumbai-based lawyer Rajeev K. Panday.
The plea also said the court should declare that a 2008 government order will not preclude an authorised officer under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act from initiating criminal prosecution against a channel in case of violation of provisions of the Act.
It alleged that there is 'complete absence' of regulatory authority for TV Channels.
"The petition raises a substantial question of public importance and public interest relating to the necessity of an effective regulation of electronic media in matters involving public morality, public decorum, social tranquillity and public order," Panday said.
"There is no regulatory body for TV channels which is comparable with Press Council of India that regulates the print media. Though TV channels are audio-visual media, there is no censorship on their contents. In other words, a film that cannot be released without censor certificate can straightaway be released on a TV channel," the PIL said.
The PIL said the so-called self-regulation by electronic media has proved to be 'completely ineffective' as the 'self-regulating bodies' are private companies and are under control of the media houses.
"The private bodies have a limited power of imposing fine upto Rs one lakh which goes into their own kitty. There is no compensation to victim of media abuse. There is also no control of government over these bodies. These bodies are not accountable to people as they are not organs of the state," it said.
"The law relating to emergency blocking of objectionable website without prior notice as contained in the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for blocking for access of information by public) Rules, 2009 is much more rigorous as compared to TV channels for which there is no law for emergency blocking.
"Thus even though objectionable programme on TV channel can do more harm than an objectionable website, there is no rigorous law to curb objectionable content of a TV channel," it said. The belated action on behalf of the Government authorities against erring channels shows that the non-serious attitude of the Centre.
"...the Central Government is also non-serious about exercising its powers with reference to controlling channels by suspension and revocation of license. This has emboldened the channels to violate the programme code in a blatant manner and has given rise to malpractices such as 'Paid News' 'Extortion by blackmail', 'Character Assassination for TRP' and so on," it said.
