Delhi High Court: Petitioners approached this Court challenging the order dated 09-01-2024 passed by Respondent 1, Union of India, by which the operation of News TV Channel “Lokshahi Marathi” was suspended on all distribution platform operators throughout India for a period of 30 days with effect from 6:00pm on 09-01-2024. Subramonium Prasad, J., while exercising its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution and keeping in view respondents’ satisfaction that all the defects pointed out were rectified by petitioners and the activity of the channel was under their control, opined that petitioners must be permitted to commence the operation of channel.
Petitioners were granted permission to operate the News TV Channel “Lokshahi Marathi” on 17-02-2022. Respondent 1 brought out the Guidelines for Uplinking and Downlinking of Satellite Television Channels in India, 2022 (‘the Guidelines’) on 09-11-2022 and sought certain details from petitioners vide letter dated 05-10-2023. On 17-11-2023, a Show Cause Notice was issued to petitioners indicating violation of several clauses of the Guidelines. A personal hearing was also granted to petitioners and the impugned order dated 09-01-2024 was passed by Respondent 1 suspending the operation of News TV Channel “Lokshahi Marathi” on all distribution platform operators throughout India for a period of 30 days with effect from 6:00pm on 09-01-2024. Petitioners challenging the impugned order dated 09-01-2024 before this Court.
The Court on 12-01-2024 suggested petitioners to “take corrective measures and other necessary steps to ensure that the entire activity of the channel was under its own control and demonstrate the same through furnishing a future roadmap to align its structure and operations in accordance with the Guidelines to the Ministry, which on being accepted shall result in resumption of/services after the period of suspension was over”.
The Court took noted of the communication issued by Respondent 1 to petitioners and stated that the communication indicated that petitioners had taken steps to rectify the defects pointed out by respondents and that as of today, petitioners were entitled to run the channel.
The Court, while exercising its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution and keeping in view respondents’ satisfaction that all the defects pointed out were rectified by petitioners and the activity of the channel was under their control, opined that petitioners must be permitted to commence the operation of channel. The Court noted that fifteen days had already been passed after the impugned order dated 09-01-2024 and thus, the Court directed Respondent 1 to permit petitioners to commence the operation of News TV Channel “Lokshahi Marathi” forthwith.
[Zora Traders Ltd. v. Union of India, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 583, Order dated 25-01-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioners: Jayant Mehta, Senior Advocate; Vishakha Ahuja, Advocate
For the Respondents: Vikramjeet Banerjee, ASG; Vedansh Anand, GP; Apoorv, Shankar, Suraj Mishra, Waize Ali Noor, Varun Rajawat, Kartik Baijal, Shreya V Mehra, Vidhi Jain, Advocates
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