SC stays Assam Govt's gag order on NE TV

The Supreme Court has stayed an Assam government order cancelling accreditation to the North East Television (NETV) correspondents to cover the 33rd National Games in Guwahati which began Friday, news agencies reported.

Soldiers use bomb detectors to check for explosives on a road in Guwahati, Monday, February 5, 2007. The rebel United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) withdrew its call for a boycott of India's biggest sporting event. The decision came as authorities mobilized thousands of paramilitary soldiers to protect nearly 10,000 athletes and officials expected in Guwahati, for the February 9-18 National Games. (AP Photo/ Anupam Nath)

A bench of Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan and Justice DK Jain stayed the February 6 order of the state government's Media Accreditation Committee after hearing NETV's counsel and issued notice to the parties concerned for their reply.

NETV, in its petition, alleged that the gag order was passed by the Assam government to silence the channel engaged in an unbiased coverage of the recent killing of Hindi- speaking persons by suspected ULFA terrorists, besides other insurgent-related violence in the Northeast states. Its coverage was viewed as a negative publicity to the government, said the petitioner, and claimed that the channel was also highlighting the issues connected with the national games.

Owing to its independent objective view of the issues relating to the northeast, the State government has started harassing it, NETV channel alleged in its petition.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's spokesperson February 4 had said that NETV reporters would be boycotted during the national games in Guwahati, the petitioner alleged. On February 6, the accreditation cards given to its reporters were cancelled.

Seeking court's direction to annul the state government's order, NETV, through counsel Harish Salve, contended that the order had been passed violating its fundamental rights.

Salve argued that cancellation of the accreditation facilities was a serious assault on the freedom of press as guaranteed under Article 19 (1) (a) and Article 19 (1) (6) which granted every individual the right to carry out his or her profession.

According to the petition filed by NETV Managing Director Manoranjana Sinh, the Assam government had not favourably viewed the coverage given by the channel on the largescale killings in the Northeast and had been repeatedly making efforts to browbeat it. The channel claims to have the unique distinction of being the only multilingual channel of the country telecasting live news bulletins in 17 languages of the Northeast.