| The Andhra Pradesh high court this morning struck
down a rule under the Cable Network Regulation Act that bars political
advertisements on electronic media, maintaining it discriminated between
the print and electronic media. The HC also said it was violative
of the right to freedom of trade and business.
An ETV spokesperson welcomed the judgement and said the network's
marketing department would now be able to work on getting political
parties' ads back on air. The order was passed by Chief Justice
Devender Gupta and Justice Rohini based on a petition filed by Gemini
Television Network, ETV and Maa TV which challenged rule 7 (3) of
the Act invoked by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and
Election Commission to ban telecast of political advertisements,
say reports.
Channel executives that indiantelevision.com spoke to put the additional
ad spend that was expected to be released by the court order onto
television as anywhere between Rs 50 million and Rs 80 million at
the upper limit.
Whether that rather conservative spend estimate ramps up will depend
largely on the instructions the two key political parties in the
election fray - the BJP and Congress - send out to their respective
media agencies. The BJP's media duties are being managed by the
Delhi-based Crayon's headed by Kunal Lalani, while Leo Burnett affiliate
Orchard is handling the Congress campaign.
The Andhra High Court, meanwhile, which had last week adjourned
the hearing of the case till today, observed that the order amounted
to discrimination between the two media and was also violative of
the right to freedom of trade and business, reports said.
According to a PTI report, the government can only impose "reasonable
restrictions" under Article 19 (2) of the constitution and
can stop telecast of programmes only if they threaten national security
or flare up communal violence. The court observed that the order
of the I&B and EC did come under the purview of Article 19 (2).
It also agreed with the petitioner's argument that the order amounted
to discriminating between the print and electronic media.
ETV, MAA TV, Gemini Television filed four writ petitions and they
complained that this violates the fundamental rights to do business.
The bench made it clear that the case will be heard on 23rd and
directed the Central Government to file counter affidavit.
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