‘Political vendetta’, Supreme Court stays High Court order against TV channel

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has stayed the Karnataka High Court’s order banning Kannada news channel Power TV. The Supreme Court said that stopping the telecast of the channel after its extensive reporting on the alleged sex scandal involving JDS leaders seems to be political vendetta. The Supreme Court on Friday said that stopping the telecast of Kannada news channel Power TV seems to be ‘political vendetta’. The channel had done extensive reporting on the alleged sex scandal involving JDS leaders. After this, the Karnataka High Court had passed an order which almost shut down the channel’s operations. The Supreme Court has put a stay on this order.“We must protect freedom of speech.”
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra said, “We must protect the right to freedom of speech with full vigor. The more we hear the arguments in this case, we believe that this is political vendetta. The channel covered the sex scandal extensively, so it was blocked. This is sheer political vendetta.”

Solicitor General opposed
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta opposed the CJI’s remarks, saying, “The Supreme Court has said something which cannot be justified from the record. The show cause notice to the channel was issued on February 9 as it was found that the licence for uplink and downlink permissions has been sublet by the channel. Uplink and downlink permissions cannot be sublet without the explicit permission of the Home Ministry as its misuse may be detrimental to the country.”

stay on the order of high court
The Supreme Court’s remark came after it came to know that writ petitions against the channel were filed in the High Court by two JDS functionaries. Following the SG’s objection, the bench stayed the High Court order till Monday and said, “We have nothing to do with politics. We will proceed strictly according to the law.”

The channel had extensively reported the Prajwal Revanna sex scandal case
Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the TV channel, said the High Court had no grounds to suspend the telecast of news and other programmes by the channel. he/she said the petitioners had approached the High Court after the channel had extensively telecast the alleged sex scandal involving Prajwal and Suraj Revanna.

A single bench of the High Court heard arguments from the counsel for the petitioners, the channel and the Centre and ordered Power TV to stop broadcasting. The channel stopped the news broadcast and started broadcasting a blank screen with the message ‘Satyamev Jayate’.