(1.) Instant public interest writ petition is filed by an advocate practicing in this Court, challenging the constitutional validity of Rules 6(1)(a) and 6(1) (i) of the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994, and the orders dated 06.03.2020 (Exhibits-P1 and P2) issued by Union of India against Asianet News TV Channel and Media One TV Channel. The prayers sought for in the writ petition are as follows:
(2.) Short facts leading to the filing of the writ petition are that,- In response to the passage of Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which allows fast-tracked naturalization for illegal immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan belonging to six religions viz., Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian, protests began all over India from December, 2019 onwards; that peaceful protests were going all over the country for about 2 months criticizing the Central Government in making religion a criteria for deciding citizenship of the country, violating the fundamental principles of secularism enshrined in the Constitution of India. On 25.02.2020, two media channels, viz., Asianet News and Media One TV had covered those riots in the north east part of Delhi and broadcasted them. Being aggrieved, respondent issued show cause notices on 28.02.2020 to both the media houses for violation of Rules 6(1)(c) and 6(1)(e) of the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994 and calling upon them to show cause as to why action as per the provisions of Uplinking/Downlinking Guidelines, the terms and conditions of the permission granted and the provisions of Section 20 of the Cable Act should not be initiated as disclosed form the final order. The media houses furnished reply to the said notices on 3.3.2020 by stating that whatever they had broadcasted was actually correct and did not attack any particular religion or community or did not promote anti national activity, as alleged by the respondent.
(3.) Thereafter, the respondent issued Exhibit-P1 order dated 06.03.2020, prohibiting transmission or re-transmission of Asianet News TV Channel for 48 hours on any platform throughout India w.e.f 19:30:00 hours on 6.3.2020 till 19:30:00 hours on 8.3.2020. The respondent has also issued Exhibit-P2 order dated 6.3.3020 to Media one TV channel, relevant portion of which is extracted hereunder:
ABOUT US "REGENT COMPUTRONICS PVT. LTD." is a Company incorporated in 1991 under the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956. Since its inception to 1995, the Company was busy in carrying out the activities related to various Banks' Job Work..
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