New Delhi:
In relief for the Malayalam TV channel ‘MediaOne’, Supreme Court today stayed the Center’s January 31 order to ban the news channel from telecasting over security concerns. The court has allowed the channel to resume broadcast again till further orders.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had refused to renew the Malayalam TV channel’s broadcast license citing national security reasons, without disclosing the exact grounds. Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited, which runs the channel MediaOne TV, had then appealed in the Supreme Court against the Kerala High Court order upholding the Centre’s decision.
Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited had applied for broadcast permissions to be renewed from September 30, 2021, to September 29, 2031.
The Supreme Court on March 10 had issued notice on the channel’s plea and had also asked the Centre to produce relevant files from the Home Ministry about security concerns.
Today, the three-judge bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath went through the Home Ministry’s files
The court noted that the files have not been shared with the petitioner (MediaOne) so far and the question of whether they should be shared for the petitioner to be able to defend themselves shall remain open for discussion in subsequent hearings.
