Thaindian News

New Delhi, Oct 10 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday slammed the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government over its decision concerning renewal of licence to TV channels, saying the step was unconstitutional and an invasion of freedom of media.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley said the government cannot license knowledge and the government appeared “hugely troubled” by the independence of the media.

“This is clearly unconstitutional, this is an invasion of the freedom of expression, the freedom of media, and the object of this is that somehow hard steps must be taken that the media can be disciplined to fall in line because the government seems to be hugely troubled by the independence of the Indian media today,” he said.

The cabinet had Friday approved a proposal of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry that entails the power to cancel the licence of news channels if they were found guilty of five “violations” of the programming and advertising code.

The decision said that renewal of the permission to TV channels will be considered for a period of 10 years at a time subject to the condition that the channel should not have been found guilty of violating the terms and conditions of permission, including violations of the programme and advertisement code on five occasions or more.

Jaitley said any citizen of the country has a right to start a newspaper or newschannel and only restriction can be on grounds provided in the constitution, including public order, national sovereignty and relations with other countries.

He said that the withholding of licence would be unreasonable and added that it would mean “the government has found you guilty so as not allow renewal of license”.

He said if the government does not drop the idea, the BJP will oppose it at all fora.