The Supreme Court shall hear today the special leave petition filed by Malayalam news channel MediaOne against the judgment of the Kerala High Court which upheld the Centre's decision to not renew its telecast license citing national security grounds.
The bench comprising Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath had issued notice on the matter (on 10 March), to consider the prayer for interim relief.
The bench had 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.
MediaOne approached the Supreme Court on March 2, hours after a division bench of the Kerala High Court upheld the recent ban imposed on it by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The channel contended 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.
During the previous hearing, 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.
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