Karnataka High Court asks Centre to decide whether Power TV can resume broadcast

A Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday declined to interfere with a single judge's interim direction to halt broadcast by Kannada news channel, Power TV [Power Smart Media Pvt. Ltd. and ors v. Union of India and ors.].The Bench of Chief Justice NV Anjaria and Justice KV Aravind, however, asked the Central government to decide expeditiously on whether the TV channel can resume broadcasts or not. To this end, a deadline of six weeks was set today to decide on the fate of a show cause notice (alleging violations of the Cable TV Networks Act and allied rules and guidelines) issued by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting against Power TV on February 9 this year, as well as an application filed in 2022 for the renewal of Power TV's licence. The Court asked the Union government to give Power TV an opportunity to be heard before deciding the matter. The Bench also permitted the owner and operator of Power TV (Power Smart Media Private Limited and Mitcoin Infraprojects) to file its reply before the Union government, if they wish to, within one week. .The order was passed while disposing of two writ appeals against a common interim order passed by Justice SR Krishna Kumar on June 25. In this order, Justice Kumar had arrived at a prima facie finding that the licence to broadcast content on Power TV has not been renewed. Therefore, he restrained the broadcast of any content on the TV news channel. This interim order was passed on two writ petitions - one filed by Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Dr. BR Ravikanthe Gowda and the other filed by former Member of the Karnataka Legislative Council and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HM Ramesh Gowda and his wife Dr. A Ramya Ramesh.The petitioners claimed that they had been victims of derogatory broadcasts by Power TV and that the channel did not have any licence to continue operating.The petitioners, therefore, urged the High Court to order the Central government to halt Power TV from telecasting or broadcasting any news. On June 25, Justice Kumar directed that all broadcast on Power TV should be halted for the time being since there was nothing to conclusively indicate that there was an active licence to broadcast content on the channel..This interim order was challenged by Power Smart Media and Mitcoin before the Division Bench of the High Court. The Division Bench opined that it is not inclined to lift the stay imposed on broadcasts by the single judge until then.The Court explained that it is only appropriate that broadcast is prohibited until the controversy is finally decided and the allegations raised in the February 9 show cause notice are finally dealt with.Such a temporary prohibition cannot be equated with a prohibition against fundamental rights to free speech and expression, the Division Bench said. The Division Bench also clarified that it has not expressed any opinion on the merits of the allegations made by the rival sides since the matter is yet to be decided on by the competent authorities.