MediaOne moves to Kerala HC’s division bench against I&B ministry

Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd, the parent company of Malayalam news channel Media One, on Wednesday, has filed an appeal to the Kerala High Court’s Division Bench against its order on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the Kerala High Court had dismissed a petition filed by MediaOne, challenging the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s to ban channel’s telecast after Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) did not give security clearance for renewal of its licence.

Dismissing the petitions filed by the company’s employees, Single bench of Justice N Nagaresh held that after perusing the files from the MHA, it has been found that there are intelligence inputs that justify the denial of security clearance to the channel, according to Live Law.

The I&B had issued the ban order based on national security concerns flagged by the union Ministry of Home Affairs.

Declining to keep his order in abeyance for a few days to enable the channel to appeal against it, the bench observed, “This court is not inclined to interfere with the denial of renewal of petitioner’s license. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed.”

The I&B ministry stopped MediaOne’s transmission citing ‘security’ reasons on January 31. This was the second time that the news channel was directed to stop its broadcast. In 2020, MediaOne, along with another Malayalam news channel, Asianet was banned for 48 hours for its extensive coverage of the Delhi riots.

Latest Indian news

Popular Stories

Latest Video