The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court against Sudarshan TV stating that the TV UPSC Jihad program is “not in good taste” and was likely to “promote communal attitudes”. MIB in this context has also cautioned Suresh Chavhanke led channel to be “careful in future”.
The Ministry, by exercising its powers has stated that the channel should review the content of future episodes of the Programme “Bindas Bol- UPSC Jihad” and that the audiovisual content should be suitably moderated and modified so as to ensure that there is no violation of the Code.
The affidavit states that the Ministry is in concurrence with the findings and recommendations of the IMC. The Ministry is of the opinion that while freedom of speech of expression is a fundamental right, the tone and tenor of the episodes telecast do indicate that the channel has through the various utterances and audio-visual content breached the Programme code. The ministry finds that they are not in good taste, offensive and was likely of promoting communal attitudes”.
The said order has come in light of the proceedings that MIB was partaking against Sudarshan TV for its alleged violation of Programme Code under Rule 6 of the Cable TV Network Rules, 1994 framed under the Cable TV Networks Act, 1955 for its telecast of the program titled “Bindas Bol – UPSC Jihad”.
The Ministry has annexed the order which states that Sudarshan TV has been directed to make due compliance of the aforesaid directions before telecast and report the same of the ministry forthwith.
The Central Govt. last month had informed the Supreme Court that the Inter-Ministerial Committee had made some additional recommendations with respect to the Sudarshan News TV channel.
Earlier, the MIB had served notice to the channel over complaints of violations of the program code under the Cable TV Network Regulation Act.
The matter will be taken up tomorrow before a bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud.
