The Madras High Court on Wednesday sought the response of Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), an association of both news and non-news television channels in the country, to a public interest litigation petition for the constitution of a censor board for editing programmes aired by entertainment channels.
A Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad ordered notice to the IBF, returnable by July 10, to the petition filed by 38-year-old advocate K. Suthan of Chennai. The judges wanted to know if a committee or a board, akin to the Central Board of Film Certification, could be constituted for censoring television content.
The petitioner had primarily complained about the “obscene” content of a Tamil reality show titled Big Boss anchored by actor Kamal Haasan and telecast by Star Vijay. He had made the television channel and the actor too respondents to the case and urged the court to issue notices to them seeking an explanation. However, during the course of hearing, he agreed not to press the PIL petition against the actor since he had no role to play in deciding the content of the reality show. After recording his submission, the judges ordered notices to IBF, Star Vijay and Endemole Shine India which produces the reality show for the television channel.
In his affidavit, the petitioner pointed out that the IBF had constituted an independent self-regulatory body named Broadcasting Contents Complaints Council (BCCC) for examining content-related complaints against entertainment channels and the council too had framed elaborate rules which expressly prohibit sex, obscenity and derogatory content.
But the rules were not followed by many television channels, the petitioner contended. He claimed that the content of Big Boss in particular was against “our culture and it leads to social degradation.”
When the Centre insists upon mandatory pre-censorship for movies, which are watched only by select audience who prefer to pay for it and which adheres to different certification norms, such censorship should be made mandatory for television programmes too watched by an entire family, the petition insisted.
