The State government on Wednesday told the Madras High Court that though the Legislative Assembly can enact a law for constitution of Press Council of Tamil Nadu (PCTN), such a regulating body will be able to govern only the print media and not electronic or online media.
“It is submitted that the government cannot show partiality among the media. Hence, formation of Press Council of Tamil Nadu only for print media may not be viable,” a status report filed before Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy read.
V.P. Jeyaseelan, Director of Information and Public Relations, had filed the report in compliance of a direction issued in August last year by a Division Bench of Justices N. Kirubakaran (since retired) and P. Velmurugan who had ordered constitution of PCTN within three months.
State Government Pleader (SGP) P. Muthukumar said, pursuant to the August 19 court order to constitute the PCTN, the government obtained a list of retired Supreme Court as well as High Court judges to head the PCTN. Names of retired IAS and IPS officials were also obtained to appoint members.
Simultaneously, the government sought the opinion of Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram who stated that the Press Council Act of 1978 empowers only the Centre to establish a press council. The A-G also said that the Central legislation does not empower the State government to form such a council.
Further, the Law department opined that the source of the central Act was Entry 39 (newspapers, books & printing presses) of List III (concurrent list) of the VII schedule to the Constitution. Therefore, the State legislature could also pass a law for constitution of Press Council of Tamil Nadu but it would have to receive the President’s assent due to repugnancy.
Further, the department pointed out that the PCTN could govern only the print media and not others. Therefore, the government had reservations over the issue.
However, the State had begun complying with the other direction issued by the court last year to amend the Tamil Nadu News Media Representative Accreditation Rules (Headquarters) Rules of 2002.
The rules were being redrafted and titled as Tamil Nadu State News Media Representative Accreditation Rules of 2021, the SGP said and obtained four weeks time from the first Bench to present a much better picture on the entire issue.
