FASIH CHAUDHARY Vs. DIRECTOR GENERAL DOORDARSHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition is for special leave to appeal from the decision of the High Court of Delhi, dated 13th July, 1988. By the said Order the High Court dismissed the writ petition filed by the petitioner. In the said writ petition, the petitioner had asked for a direction to the Union of India and/or the Doordarshan to accept the script of the petitioner and eventually to give him the contract. The High Court in its order recorded that there was no substance in the allegation that Shri Gulzar, respondent No. 2 herein, had been preferred over the petitioner by practising discrimination. There was a proposal to produce T. V. Serials based on national integration, communal harmony, against exploitation of child labour, equal status for women etc. etc. and the last date for submitting such projects was 7th May, 1986. It was further announced by the Doordarshan that the project should be completed in terms of the guidelines issued by the Doordarshan, respondent No. 1. The said guidelines for sponsored programme to be produced by sponsor indicate certain requirement for the proposals. The guidelines, inter alia, state in clause (2) that the proposals for sponsored programmes should consist of the following:

(2.) Clause (3) of the said guidelines indicated further that all proposals received by the Doordarshan will be given a reference number and acknowledged. In case proposals not accompanied by any of the foregoing documents mentioned aforesaid are received, a suitable indication would be given by the Doordarshan to the producer along with the acknowledgement. It further indicated that a proposal would be considered "complete" only after the required number of copies of the documents mentioned aforesaid were supplied. It appears, therefore, that a proposal though not containing all the particulars would still be a proposal but not a "complete" proposal but the proposal will be complete only after the required number of copies of all the documents mentioned hereinbefore are supplied. The theme with which the petitioner was concerned and with which also the proposal of respondent No. 2 was concerned, was the life and history of the great Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib. It was the case of the petitioner that before the last date for the submission of the project on 7th May, 1986 though the petitioner had submitted his project, respondent No. 2 had not.

(3.) The High Court did not accept the aforesaid allegation. We have examined the records and the acknowledgment sheets in original which were produced in the Court for our satisfaction and it appears to us that the High Court was right on this point and the petitioner was not. Respondent No. 2 submitted, it appears, the theme of the matter by a letter dated 4th February, 1986. This was not undoubtedly a complete project. It was only on the theme of the project, namely, the life and history of the great poet Mirza Ghalib. The petitioner, however, by a letter dated 13th March, 1986 submitted the proposal with 13 episodes giving the entire idea of his project depicting the life of Mirza Ghalib and his contribution to the national integration. The final decision to award the project to respondent No. 2 was taken, it appears, some time in November, 1986 after considering three complete proposals on the project. It appears to us from the records -that the Doordarshan authorities found that the project submitted by the petitioner was not "attractive or interesting". It appears further from the letter that the Doordarshan authorities did not find the proposal of the petitioner to be "attractive or interesting" enough. There was one more proposal given by another person apart from the petitioner and respondent No. 2. It is, however, not clear what that proposal was. It appears that the Doordarshan authorities did not find the proposal of that person to be any more attractive or interesting than, that of the petitioner. In the meantime, respondent No. 2 had submitted his proposal and the Doordarshan, though the proposal was not complete, asked respondent No. 2 to give further details and after they were submitted by respondent No. 2, it was examined by the Committee. It was asserted on behalf of respondent No. 2, and it appears to be corroborated by the records that before the proposal of respondent No. 2 was considered, the script and the proposal of the petitioner as well as that of the other person were considered and not found to be "attractive or interesting" enough. Therefore, it appears that though the idea was presented by respondent No. 2 by a letter but the matter was decided only after the entire proposal had been submitted by respondent No. 2. It appears, therefore, that all the proposals were duly considered by the Committee. It further appears that respondent No. 2 had submitted his proposal before his script was accepted by the Doordarshan authorities.