Justice N Nagaresh of the Kerala High Court on Tuesday upheld the order issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting revoking the license of Media One, a Malayalam news channel owned by Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd. The channel authorities and the Kerala Union of Working Journalists in a writ petition had sought the dismissal of the Centre’s order revoking the license.
Though the order was issued last month, Justice Nagaresh had allowed the channel to continue broadcasting pending reply from the ministry. The judge had asked the ministry to submit in a sealed cover the reasons for revoking the license of the channel. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry had told the court that the revoking of the license was based on inputs provided by the intelligence agencies to the Union Home Ministry. The Ministry of Home Affairs had passed on the input to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry which in turn revoked the channel’s license.
The MIB in a sealed cover had submitted to the court the details provided by the MHA that led it to take the decision. Justice Nagaresh in his order on Tuesday said that a perusal of the intelligence information found that the ministry’s denial of license to the company was in tune with the intelligence inputs. “Going through the files, I found that the Ministry has called for intelligence inputs. Based on the intelligence inputs, the committee of officers has found that security clearance should not be given . The Ministry has decided to accept the finding of the Committee of officers . There are inputs justifying the denial of security clearance to the channel. Therefore I am dismissing the writ petition,” said the Judge.
Later, the channel authorities said in a release that it was closing down the transmission and would approach a Division Bench challenging the Single Bench order.