Reality show “Bigg Boss” will continue to be aired on prime time as the Bombay High Court on Monday extended till December 3 its stay on the Information and Broadcasting ministry’s directive on shifting the show to 11 p.m.
The stay was extended after the Union government sought time to file their reply to the petition filed by Viacom 18, owners of the channel Colors , challenging the directive issued to it to reschedule the show after prime time.
By extending the stay, the division bench of justices D.K. Deshmukh and N.D. Deshpande on Monday granted the Centre time to file a reply.
The directive to shift the show from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. was made after the Ministry said that the content of the programme was not fit to be watched by children and was not fit for “unrestrained public exhibition”.
Viacom 18 had, however, challenged this saying that there was “nothing objectionable” in the show and that the Ministry’s order did not specify which episode or part of the episode “offends decency and good taste”.
During the last hearing on November 18, the court had observed that prima facie there was merit in the channel’s argument that its advertising deals were correlated to the show being aired in the “prime time”, and hence Ministry’s order led to “severe consequences”.
