Supreme Court Issues Notice On MediaOne Channel's Plea Challenging Centre's Telecast Ban

The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath posted the matter for next Tuesday (March 15) to consider the prayer for interim relief. The bench also asked the Centre to produce the relevant files(the files of the Home Ministry which raised national security concerns) on which the reliance was placed by the High Court.

Petitioners' submission

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the channel, submitted that there was no complaint against the channel during its ten years of its functioning. There is no requirement for security clearance at the time of renewal. Rohatgi took serious objection to the High Court Division Bench calling for the files in sealed cover after the judgment was reserved.

Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, also appearing for the channel, submitted that it had over 2.5 crore viewers. Even as late as on 2019, the downlinking permission was granted to it.

"For a regional channel to survive is very difficult. We have hundreds of employees. How do we feed them. We request interim relief", Rohatgi submitted.

"We have something in our mind. What we propose to do now is to issue notice and keep the matter on next Tuesday.We are asking them to place on record the files before us", Justice Chandrachud added.

It was also pointed out by that the High Court itself recorded in the judgment that the details of the security concerns were not discernible from the files produced by the State.

"We have seen that, Paragraph 32, they say too many details are not available", Justice Chandrachud said.

"Issue notice returnable on March 15, 2022 on the SLP & the application for interim relief. Liberty is given to serve the central agency. Respondents shall produce all the relevant files on which reliance has been placed by the HC on the next date of listing. List on March 15, 2022", the bench stated in the order.

The channel contended in the petition that the exact reasons for the Centre's non-renewal of the license have not been revealed to them and the Court approved the decision on the basis of certain sealed cover files produced by the Ministry of Home Affairs, purportedly raising some national security concerns.

The petitioner further contended that the impugned judgment was patently illegal since Clauses 9 and 10 of the uplinking and downlinking guidelines make it abundantly clear that for the purpose of renewal of license, security clearance is not a factor to be considered.

Moreover, since there was not a single complaint or any action against the petitioner in the last 10 years, it was asserted that renewal was a matter of right for the petitioner on a plain reading of Clauses 9 and 10.

Reliance was also placed on the Supreme Court judgment in Manoharlal Sharma Vs. Union of India(Pegasus case)where it was held that the scope of judicial review in matters pertaining to national security is limited, however, it does not mean that the State gets a free pass every time the spectre of national security is raised.

Background

On January 31, a few hours after the Ministry suspended the channel's telecast citing security concerns, MediaOne had approached the Single Judge with a plea. The channel owned by Jamaat-e-Islami went off the air on the very same day.

Although the Single Judge granted the channel an interim relief allowing it to telecast till the case was decided, Justice N. Nagaresh held that after perusing the files from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, it has found intelligence inputs that justify the denial of security clearance to the channel. The Ministry had produced the files before the Court in a sealed cover.

Aggrieved by this, MediaOne had approached a Division Bench with an appeal. However, the division bench agreed with the single Judge and upheld the recent ban imposed on it by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting citing that national security was of utmost importance for the smooth functioning of a country.

Case Title: Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited v. Union of India