Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday rejected the Kerala news Channel MediaOne’s petition against the Centre revoking the licence of the Islamist channel. The HC observed that the reasons enumerated by the Centre against the channel are, serious.
The Central Government on last Wednesday had informed the Kerala High Court that its decision to revoke the licence of the Malayalam news channel MediaOne was based on credible national security concerns flagged by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Last Monday, The Kerala based news channel went off the air after Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry suspended its licence over security concerns. After that, the channel had approached the Kerala High court challenging the order.
During a hearing in the matter at the High Court, in a statement filed through Assistant Solicitor General S Manu, the Central government had said that going by the decision of the Supreme Court for the case in a situation of national security, a party cannot insist on the strict observance of the principles of natural justice. Earlier On January 31, after the channel MediaOne went off the air, The Kerala High Court had deferred the Central Government’s order for two days until the hearing which happened later.
The Central Government, while opposing any grant of reliefs to the operation of the channel had said that doing so would defeat the purpose of the guidelines that are set in place for granting security clearance. The Ministry of Home Affairs has refused to state details on the concerns raised by MHA against MediaOne as of now. The statement filed by the Central Government read, “The MHA has informed that denial of security clearance in the case on hand is based on intelligence inputs, which are sensitive and secret in nature, therefore, as a matter of policy and in the interest of national security, MHA does not disclose reasons for the denial. It is submitted that the interim order passed by this Hon’ble Court if continued is defeating the purpose of the relevant guidelines and objective of obtaining the security clearance of MHA”
Further stating that while the Ministry of Home Affairs does not directly communicate with media companies, the Centre rejected the petitioner’s claim that the company had written to the ministry for security clearance but received no reply from the MHA. “In this connection, it is clarified that the applications for renewal is first examined in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and then Ministry sends the proposal to the MHA for security clearance,” the reply stated.
The Centre had clarified that a show-cause notice was also sent to the company in 2016 when the MHA had denied security clearances to the permission of opening additional TV channels by the Media house M/s Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited. In 2012, The Media House had sought permission from the centre to uplink and downlink “of a Non-News TV channel “Media One Life” and News TV Channel “Media One Global”.
However, In reply to the above clarification by the Centre, the media company has said that they were unaware of the denial of security clearances since they were never communicated for the same. According to the Central Government, the permission for uplinking and downlinking “Media One Life” was cancelled on September 11, 2019, while denying the security clearance.
The channel is owned by Jamaat e Islami. It becomes imperative to mention here that in the month of July last year, a Kerala-based journalist had revealed how Islamist organisation Jamaat-e-Islami has been receiving funds from Saudi Arabia universities to ‘Islamise’ India. The outfit was banned on February 28, 2019, by the Government of India following the terror attack in Pulwama as it was suspected of funding the terror organisation Hizbul Mujahideen.
The channel was previously banned for 48 hours by the Centre in 2020 for breaking the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1998 for its shoddy ‘coverage of the Delhi riot’.
The Ministry had alleged that MediaOne accused the Delhi Police of remaining inactive during the violence, and the channel also blamed police for vandalising shops and fruit carts.
Then, along with MediaOne TV, another Kerala based Malayalam News channel, namely Asianet News was also rewarded with a 48-hour token ban by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for indulging in biased coverage of the Delhi riots, being critical of the RSS and Delhi police and siding with a particular community, showing those who supported Citizenship Amendment Act in poor light.
It alleged that the kind of provocative coverage the two news channels indulged in could further incite communal violence. This kind of loose reporting could have ‘incited violence and posed danger to the maintenance of law and order situation, particularly when the situation is already highly volatile and charged up and riots are taking place in the area’, the order had read.