Kerala High Court reserves order on MediaOne appeal against ban

A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Thursday reserved its verdict in the appeal preferred by the MediaOne news channel against the decision of a single-judge who had upheld an order by the Central government revoking the channel's broadcasting licence [Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited v Union of India & Ors]..A Division Bench of Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice Shaji P Chaly heard the matter at length today. .Senior Advocates Dushyant Dave and S Sreekumar briefed by advocate Haris Beeran appeared for the appellant-channel. The respondent Union of India was represented by Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi.The ASG said at the outset that YouTube is flooded with messages against the single-judge who delivered the judgement under challenge, Justice N Nagaresh.Dave reacted strongly to this and objected to the innuendo that the petitioners were behind the same."YouTube is a vast ocean and if someone has done anything as alleged by ASG, we condemn it and we have the highest respect for the judiciary. But to give an impression that we are behind is totally baseless and ASG should not have made such statements to prejudice the court," Dave said. On merits, Dave argued that under the guidelines which the government has relied on to revoke the licence that had previously been granted to the channel, security clearance is mandated only at the initial stage of grant of permission and not at the renewal stage. "For renewal, there are certain conditions which we have to fulfill which does not include security clearance. The Govt has therefore done this revocation without any power and therefore, it to be set aside," Dave contended..The Court prima facie opined that from a bare reading of the provisions it seems that revocation is a penalty, and that the process of obtaining security clearance is prescribed only for obtaining the licence in the first instance and not for renewal. However, the ASG argued that the guidelines must be viewed as a whole and with its intent in mind. .When the matter was taken up again at 1:45 pm, the ASG sought time to produce documents in a sealed cover and to file a more detailed counter.However, Dave said the same is immaterial and was allowed to argue the case. He placed reliance on a catena of decisions of the Supreme Court on the aspect of press freedom and the scope of judicial review in matters pertaining to national security. These included Romesh Thapar v State of Madras, Maneka Gandhi v Union of India, Manoharlal Sharma v Union of India and Subramaniam Swamy v Arun Shourie. Dave concluded by pointing out that refusal to renew licence will be the death knell for the company as 350 employees will be jobless and the infrastructure built up over a decade will go to waste..On January 31, the MediaOne channel was taken off air following which they approached the High Court, which decided to defer the operation of the Ministry's order.However, on February 8, single-judge Justice Nagaresh upheld the decision of the I&B Ministry to revoke the Malayalam channel's licence. The Court opined that the material handed over to the Court in a sealed cover indicated that the Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA) had sufficient cause to deny security clearance to the channel, thereby justifying the ban.The Central government had refused to state what the concerns raised by MHA were, and contended that a party cannot insist on observing natural justice principles in a situation involving national security.The appeal against said order alleged that the Central government's haste to cancel the licence of the channel indicated that there was some pre-scripted agenda motivated by some ill-will against the channel.