The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the telecast ban imposed by the Union Government on Malayalam news channel, MediaOne, and allowed the channel to operate till further order. The court passed the interim order in a special leave petition filed by the company running the channel assailing the Kerala High Court’s judgement of upholding the decision of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to not renew the broadcast license of the channel.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath passed the order after examining the files produced by the Ministry of Home Affairs raising security concerns regarding the company running the channel. The bench examined the files itself, without sharing them with the petitioner, with the consent of its counsel Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave.
The bench said that a prima facie case was made out for the grant of interim relief for the channel. The channel has been allowed to operate as it used to do before the Centre’s decision.
The top court asked the Centre to file a detailed counter affidavit by March 26 on the appeals filed by the channel against the High Court order.
