The Supreme Court, on Wednesday, April 6, while revoking the ban imposed on Media One television channel, pulled up the Kerala High Court for the judgement upholding the ban. A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli said that the sealed cover procedure followed by the single judge and the division bench, restricted their “right to a fair and reasonable proceeding.” The apex court quashed the order of the Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry, that refused to renew the broadcast licence of the Malayalam news channel, Media One citing “security reasons”.
As soon as the I&B Ministry refused to renew the licence and the channel went off-air on January 31, Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited (which runs Media One) approached the Kerala High Court seeking to stay the ban. The HC put the order on hold for two days. The interim stay was on February 2 and was extended till February 7. On February 8, a single-judge bench of the Kerala HC dismissed the plea saying that the I&B Ministry refused to renew the security clearance for the channel based on inputs from various intelligence agencies. Then, the channel went for an appeal against this order. On March 2, a division bench of Kerala HC upheld the single-judge order. The documents pertaining to the inputs from intelligence agencies were submitted in a closed envelope in both the cases.
Pointing to this, the SC said that the sealed cover procedure followed in both the instances denied the petitioners’ rights. “The Division Bench of the High Court observed that though the nature and gravity of the issue is not discernible from the files, there are clear indications that the security of the state and public order would be impacted if the permission granted to MBL to operate the channel is renewed. The Division Bench has also not disclosed the reasons for the denial of security clearance. There is no explanation of what weighed in the mind of the court leading it to hold that the denial of clearance was justified despite observing that the nature and gravity of the issue is not discernible,” the court said.
Further, justices Chandrachud and Kohli said that the sealed cover procedure followed in both the instances, have rendered the appellant’s right to writ remedies – which is a basic feature and also the ‘heart and soul’ of the Constitution - “a dry parchment”.
The court also observed that the non-disclosure of reasons based on which the security clearance was denied, which led to the I&B Ministry to refuse renewing the licence, and providing the relevant materials only to the court in a sealed cover rendered the petitioner’s procedural guarantees under the Constitution useless.
“The appellants’ right to writ remedies has been denied through a formalistic order by the High Court. The procedure that was followed by the High Court has left the appellants in a maze where they are attempting strenuously to fight in the dark. The non-disclosure of reasons for denial of security clearance to the appellants and the disclosure solely to the Court in a sealed cover has restricted the core of the principles of natural justice - the right to a fair and reasonable proceeding,” the court said.