Madras HC directs TN to create press council of Tamil Nadu within 3 months

The council will be vested with various powers including recognising press clubs and journalist associations and holding elections to these clubs.
Madras High Court
Madras High Court

The Madras High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu government to create a Press Council of Tamil Nadu within a span of three months. The council, the High Court said, should be headed by a retired High Court or Supreme Court judge. It should also consist of a team of senior and retired journalists and IAS and IPS officers. The yet to be constituted Press Council will be vested with several powers to regulate journalists and press organisations in the state. The council, which will be constituted under the purview of the Tamil Nadu government, is being seen as an attempt to identify fake journalists who indulge in illegal acts like extortion and to protect the interests of genuine journalists.

Most importantly, the Press Council, the High Court said, will be vested with the authority to recognise press clubs and scribe associations and related unions in Tamil Nadu. The council will also have the power to disallow or ban groups and associations based on caste, communities and similar categories. The council can also hold and recognise elections to these clubs, unions and associations.

The council should specify a particular period to conduct such elections. If the press club does not conduct these elections within the stipulated time, then the administration of the club or association can be taken over by the council. The council also has the power to decide the number of such associations in each town or city in Tamil Nadu. Granting free passes and grants to journalists shall only be done via the council.

The court has also stated that the press council can regulate conferences or meetings by allowing or denying permits for these events. The press council has the power to collect the source of income and other details before allowing permission to these meetings.

The High Court has also granted permission to the yet to be constituted council to identify fake journalists and lodge complaints against them with the police. Members of the public can also send complaints regarding fake journalists to the council, according to the court’s directive.

Unless the media organisation discloses their employee strength, salary steps, TDS details and tax paid to the government and proof of sales, subscriptions or viewerships, the government can withhold issuing press stickers, ID cards and other perks to these organisations. Once the council has been created, all journalist organisations and clubs should be placed in ‘suspended animation’ so the elections to them can be conducted under the supervision of the Press Council, within a period of six months.

If any reader files a complaint, the council has the power to summon the publication and investigate the veracity of the report. Depending upon the findings, the council also has the power to get the news publication which published the said report to carry an apology or rejoinder or publish the response of the complainant to the piece of news in a prominent space or page of the paper/online site.

The court has also directed the state government to follow the directions and submit a compliance report within four weeks, failing which the Director of Information and Public relations will have to appear before the bench.

Although the court has issued the directives in order to clamp down on fake news, there are concerns that the above clauses could likely curtain freedom or speech or the independent functioning of media houses and freelance journalists, especially when the council is being constituted by the state government.

Speaking to TNM, senior journalist and columnist professor AS Paneerselvam said, “The  concerns with the order is that it does not clearly define the terms ‘fake journalists,’ ‘agenda based news,’ etc and therefore complicates the process of filtering out fake news even more.”

The journalist adds that a different approach is needed if the aim is to weed out fake news.

“While the intent behind the judgement is to filter out fake news, the order conflates external factors such as distribution of benefits to journalists and management of journalist bodies with core journalist concerns such as quality of journalism and its content. If the purpose is to weed out fake journalism, then a different approach should be followed and not by creating a larger and stringent regulatory framework for the media which focuses on the above-mentioned external factors,” he added.

“I also wonder if the judgment would pass the judicial scrutiny if it is challenged and goes to a higher court. The Press Council of India was set up by the Parliament in 1955. Similarly, a similar council for the state should ideally also be set up through laws passed by the legislative assembly and not through judicial intervention,” he added.

The Hindu Group’s Director N Ram added that the judgement was unlikely to survive an appeal in the apex court if challenged. “It (the judgement) is highly flawed and contains exaggerated and uncalled for observations in the media,” he told TNM. For instance, a paragraph in the judgement read,”...the media is now a multi-fanged genie which has got out of the bottle and has spread its vicious tentacle everywhere. It is difficult to put it back into the bottle as everyone has tasted blood” casts the entire media in a bad light. These statements cast the entire media in a negative light, N Ram adds. One more highly controversial portion of the judgement reads several “the biggest threat to media freedom and the right to free speech and expression available to journalists is the multitude of journalists’ associations that have sprung up in Chennai and districts. 
 
N Ram added that parts of the judgement attempts to take a dig at independent and citizen journalists with their own blogs and YouTube channels. The judgement reads “..nowadays YouTubers, who run their own ‘channels’ and bloggers who are active on their own blog page or who do tweets or are Instagram activists have also started calling themselves as media persons or media influencers”. 
 
Commenting on this, he says “there are numerous freelance, independent and citizen journalists in today’s media space and the judgement amounts to delegitimizing their body of work. Further, several notable personalities enter journalism without a formal degree which the judgement is failing to recognise”. Further, he adds the question of whom to bring under the bracket of media is not for the court to decide. 
 
On the directives to set up a PCTN, he added that certain directives by the court on powers that the PCTN could enjoy was an attack on Article 19 1 (a)  freedom of speech and expression, (c) to form associations or unions and (g) ​​to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business. According to the judgement, the Press Council of Tamil Nadu can regulate elections held to the various press and journalist associations, regulate meetings, conferences etc by allowing or denying permission for these events, ask for source of income and other details of the group before issuing permissions for such meetings. 
 
“The press organisations, clubs and associations already function under a regulatory framework or set of rules depending upon the nature of the registered body i.e if it is a trust, charitable company etc. What is the need to regulate the functioning of these clubs by creating a new regulatory body and without using the existing legal provisions?,” N Ram asks.

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