Kill her Bill

It is plain censorship. Congress should tell Meenakshi Emergency Natarajan to apologise

Meenakshi Natarajan,the young Congress MP from Mandsaur,was an eloquent defender of democracy during the Lokpal debate. Less than a year later,shes threatening it. Natarajan gave notice to introduce a private members bill called the Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill,2012. Read the 14-page draft and you wont find a more crude primer on how to gag the media. Among its suggestions: a regulatory authority to be notified by the Central government that can ban coverage; its members will be chosen by,among others,the I&B minister and three government nominees; the authority will lay down standards that include prohibition of reporting of any news item based in unverified and dubious material; prohibition of publication or broadcast of any material that is defamatory; prohibition on reporting news which is obscene or offensive. This authority can order search and seizure of any document kept secretly at some secluded place. It can even suspend operations of the media organisation for up to 11 months. To hell with RTI,all documents and records…related to a complaint…investigation shall not be disclosed to any person except as directed by the Authority. And no civil court will have jurisdiction on any matter the authority is empowered to determine.

And these go on. It is the most direct assault on the peoples right to know seen in recent times. Yet I&B Minister Ambika Soni didnt condemn it but sought to distance the party from it,saying its just a private members bill. Thats not good enough. This is the same party that imposed Emergency and brought the Anti-Defamation Bill. Of course,it also brought the landmark RTI Act,which this bill openly proposes to trash.

Natarajans move comes when the Supreme Court wants to frame guidelines for the media. All these could establish a regime of prior restraint,implied both in the standards the bill suggests and guidelines the court wants framed. Theres a formidable body of legal opinion to establish that prior restraint,the perish-before-you-even-publish diktat,is extreme censorship. It has no place in a democracy. It subverts the citizens right to know,upheld most recently by the SC in the Khushboo case when it underlined that the free flow of opinions and ideas is essential to sustain the collective life of the citizenry. The Congress should kill the bill and ask Natarajan to apologise.