The Home Ministry and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry continue to be at loggerheads over the issue of granting security clearances to TV and radio channels which apply for licences.
The MHA has refused to comply with the I&B Ministry’s insistence that the former takes all responsibility and decides on whether security clearances be granted to economic offenders, who apply for licenses. Over 40 licences are thus stuck as the two ministries slug it out.
Citing two previous orders through which its powers to grant security clearances were curtailed in 2015, the MHA on September 14 maintained that a revision of the “extant system of national security clearance was not necessary.” In a letter dated August 23, I&B Secretary NK Sinha had written to the then Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi that the MHA should take a call on this issue and that economic offenders running TV or radio channels could even lead to a misuse of the right of freedom of speech and expression and be detrimental to the society.
The controversy on security clearances started in early 2015, when the Home Ministry objected to granting licences to Sun TV Group, citing the promoters’ involvement in cases related to corruption and economic offences. But in those days, the I&B Ministry batted for Sun TV and the MHA was forced to dilute its power on granting security clearances. Clipping the MHA’s wings, the Cabinet Secretariat formed an Inter Ministerial Committee (IMC) to have a final say in security clearances in mid-2016. As per this development, MHA’s powers were limited to look into the angle of sovereignty and integrity of national issues and only give inputs to the Ministry concerned and the IMC about the economic offenders.
However, the I&B Min has now changed its stand arguing that the MHA should be the sole authority and it should not be limited to giving mere inputs on the economic or corruption case about the promoters applying for licences. “As may be seen from the above, often the information/observations are quite sensitive and due diligence would need to be done before arriving at any conclusion failing which the whole purpose of obtaining the security clearance would be meaningless. Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) is not equipped to dig deep into the information provided by the MHA as it requires expert analysis.
“Moreover, the Ministry also does not have information on day-to-day development of the cases mentioned by the MHA. Thus, it would become very difficult for MIB to take any unilateral decision on such cases. Sometimes the information is about cases that have been closed, or those that are under examination/prosecution by courts or regulatory authorities,” said the I&B reiterating that MHA should take full responsibly on the antecedents of the promoters of TV and Radio channels.
The letter shows that the I&B has asked MHA to take a stand on 43 cases of applications. In these 43 cases, MHA gave adverse inputs about the involvement of the promoters in economic offences, without any opinion.
The I&B Ministry in its latest letter rejected the legal opinion given by former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi in favour of Sun TV. The AG had opined that involvement in economic offences would not hamper the Fundamental Right to carry business activities.
“However, I would like to mention that if some loaded content or false, deliberate, malicious content gets aired, a common man not having complete knowledge of that filed is more likely to accept it at its face value. Thus, if economic offenders run the channels and misuse the right of freedom of speech and expression, it may be detrimental to the society,” said the I&B Secretary rejecting the view of the former AG and asking the MHA to take full responsibility in giving security clearances.