Ministry of I&B order on revocation of uplink and downlink permission to Media One channel upheld by Kerala HC

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday upheld the revocation of uplink and downlink permission to Media One news and current affairs channel by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The restriction was placed on the channel after Ministry of Home Affairs denied security clearance to the channel.

Dismissing the writ petition against the I&B Ministry’s order, the Court noted that the denial of clearance by Ministry of Home Affairs was based on intelligence inputs which justify denial of security clearance to the channel.

The I&B Ministry had on January 31, 2022 issued the order revoking the uplink and downlink permission granted to M/s Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited, which operates Media One channel. The order had also removed the name of the channel from list of permitted channels.

Maadhyamam Broadcasting had approached the court against the order contending that the channel is not involved in any anti-national activity.

On January 5, 2022, the channel was issued a show-cause notice to explain to the government why the channel’s license should not be revoked. The channel replied that they should be allowed a hearing before taking drastic measures. The channel’s response did not amount to much and the Ministry revoked the channel’s broadcast access.

The channel was earlier granted permission to uplink and downlink the channel on September 30, 2011 for a period till September 29, 2021.

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