The Kerala high court upheld the Centre’s ban on Malayalam news channel MediaOne on Tuesday, dismissing an appeal to the decision. The ministry of information and broadcasting (I&B) suspended the channel on Monday citing security concerns. The Jamaat-e-Islami controls the channel, which is managed by Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd.
The court said charges against the channel were serious after reviewing information given by the Union government. The decision to withhold security clearance was also based on intelligence inputs from various agencies, according to the report.
The channel, on the other hand, stated that security clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs was only required for new permission/license, and not at the time of renewal. The government responded by stating that the requirement for security clearance ‘cannot continue forever.’
Uplinking and downlinking require security clearance from the home ministry, according to I&B norms.
This was not the first time the channel’s operation had been hampered. MediaOne was briefly suspended for 48 hours, along with another Malayalam news channel, Asianet, for their coverage of communal violence in Delhi in 2020, with official orders stating that they covered the violence in a way that ‘highlighted the attack on places of worship and siding towards a particular community.’
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