The Press Council of India’s sub-committee studying the atrocities on journalists has proposed to recommend to the Government a separate law with provision to fast-track cases to punish the guilty.
The PCI which met here on Monday expressed deep distress over deaths of nearly 70 journalists reported across the country in last 10 years failing to result in a single conviction.
Addressing presspersons at the end of the last council meeting of the PCI, chairman of PCI Markandey Katju said that the proposed law will also mandate creation of a public fund through which a compensation of
not less than Rs.10 lakh to the family members of the victim and also a provision to provide one job in the family where the victim happens to be the only bread-earner of the family.
The sub-committee of PCI toured 11 States and found that most complaints of harassment and atrocities on journalists confined to lower level.
As for the killings of journalists, the sub committee said, in Chattisgarh 4 journalists were killed in last two years while one in Triupura. In Manipur 8 journalists were killed in last five years whereas in Jammu and Kashmir 25 journalists lost their lives either due to military operations or extremist attacks. In Assam and surrounding States 26 journalists were killed in last 12 years.
“What is disheartening is that not a single culprit was convicted so far, which means the perpetrators were going around with impunity,” said Mr. Amarnath Kosuri who headed the sub-committee.
According to PCI, during its three-year-term from June 14, 2011 till date, it received 4397 media-related complaints of which 3445 cases were taken up for adjudication, 536 adjudicated so far, while 2915 were still pending.
Mr. Katju expressed deep concern over the problem of paid news describing it as “rampant” and said, “We have to work out some mechanism to stop it.”
PCI disclosed that according to information obtained from Election Commission of India(ECI), during the recently held Lok Sabha polls, as many as 700 complaints of paid news were received by the ECI, through
its monitoring committees across the country, of which 350 were confirmed and action was being initiated.
On the need for widening the neutral media space in view of fast growing political ownership of media, Mr. Katju said, “There is no legal bar on it. PCI has no role in it. It is Parliament to take a view on this.”
