The Madras High Court on Thursday admitted a petition seeking a direction to authorities for ensuring live telecast of the Assembly proceedings, and ordered notice to the Assembly secretary directing him to file a counter affidavit.
In the PIL petition, D. Jagadheeswaran, president of the Lok Satta Party, Tamil Nadu, stated that people should not be left to watch and be influenced by partisan news channels that showed only conveniently packaged clips of the proceedings.
When the matter came up for hearing before the Bench of Justices D. Murugesan and K.K. Sasidharan, Advocate General A. Navaneethakrishnan argued that a petition in the nature of PIL was not maintainable at the instance of a political party.
The relief sought for telecasting the entire proceedings could not be ordered as it was the prerogative of the Speaker.
The Judges said, “In our opinion the petition cannot be thrown out on the above grounds as the questions raised by the Advocate General can be considered after filing counter affidavit.”
Government Pleader S. Venkatesh took notice on behalf of the Under Secretary of the Assembly.
The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on July 16.
Mr. Jagadheeswaran said that Assembly proceedings were not telecast live by any channel. Cameras were stationed in the Assembly. The government, with the help of the State Film Division, edited the footage and released packaged portions to the media on a need basis. The media houses, thereafter, exercised their choice on what to show the public.
The citizens' right to know what transpired in the Assembly was curtailed by the State releasing only select videos, and the lack of a platform where the proceedings could be shown without editing and pick-and-choose by interested media houses. “Since the main vernacular TV channels are owned by highly polarised political groups, what the citizen ultimately sees is partisan news packaged as a political campaign.”
The petitioner submitted that live telecast allowed viewers to become virtual partners to those events. People could hear firsthand what their elected representatives said on any matter, thus developing effective and accountable representation in democratic governance.
