The Union Government approached the Supreme Court on Thursday to stop mandating guidelines on electronic media such as television, instead the court should embark the process, first on digital media including web portals and YouTube channels, it said.
In an affidavit filed on Thursday before a bench headed by justice DY Chandrachud, the Centre said that electronic media already have an existing framework governed by laws which was made clear in recent judgement of the court.
“This court may not undertake the exercise of laying down any further guidelines… it is desirable that if this court decides to undertake the exercise, it should first be undertaken with regard to digital media, as there already exists sufficient framework and judicial pronouncements with regard to electronic media and print media,” the government submitted.
The affidavit was filed against the show ‘Bindass Bol’ telecasted on Sudarshan news, which put a topic relating to the entry of Muslims in the civil services into spotlight.The show allegedly propagated the belief that Muslims were infiltrating the civil services as part of a huge conspiracy.
“Even if this court considers it appropriate to undertake the said exercise, there is no justification to confine this exercise only to mainstream electronic media. Digital media has faster reach from wider range of viewership / readership and has the potential to become viral because of several electronic applications like Whatsapp, Twitter (and) Facebook,” the affidavit stated.
“The issue the court had sought reply from the Central government was as to whether the specific programme in Sudarshan TV using specific expressions like ‘UPSC Jihad’ was permissible under the present legal framework and if not, what guidelines are required to be framed to avoid this occurrence in future. In this regard, the counter-affidavit appears to be evasive if not supportive of the broadcast of the programme in question. The question as to whether digital media has to be regulated or not was a non-issue before the court and ought not to have been gone into,” Supreme Court advocate Sriram Parakkat said.
