India's top court on Monday questioned the efficacy of self-regulatory actions taken by TV news channels and urged the News Broadcasters and Digital Association (NBDA) — the regulatory watchdog set up by TV news broadcasters — to strengthen the existing mechanism.
A bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Misra termed the current self-regulation process undertaken by news channels as "ineffective" and questioned whether the current financial penalty imposed by the regulatory body is adequate enough.
Currently, a news channel is fined up to Rs 1 lakh if it is found in violation of the NBDA's guidelines. Noting that this fine was set in 2008, the SC bench asserted the need for a proportional financial penalty that corresponds to the profits news channels make through shows which violate the rules.
"...a fine of Rs 1 lakh for a channel...is that really effective? Your fine must be of proportion to the profits you make from that show. Unless you make the rules stringent no TV channel has a compulsion to comply. For any violation, if there is a lakh penalty then what stops them?" the CJI asked.
The top court was hearing an appeal filed by the regulatory body against the verdict of the Bombay High Court from Jan 2021 — in which it had ruled that "media trial" impacts ongoing investigations and violates the law, including the programme code under the Cable Television Network Regulation Act.
The Bombay HC's observation was made while hearing a PIL in the aftermath of actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death in June 2020. The court had come down heavily on several mainstream TV news channels over the nature and tone of coverage surrounding the actor's death — from naming and shaming the accused to making unsubstantiated claims over the cause of his death even before cops had completed their investigation.
Citing that the media had gone "berserk" after Sushant's death, CJI Chandrachud asked the counsel appearing for NBDA whether the fine of Rs 1 lakh for a channel was "really effective."
"You say TV channels practice self-restraint. I don't know how many in court would agree with you. Everybody went berserk whether it was a murder and you virtually preempt the criminal investigation in such cases," the CJI observed.
"While we appreciate the fact that there has to be self-regulation, that has to be the principle, that self-regulatory body must be effective," he added.
The top court also stated that it will strengthen the regulations and urged the need to reconsider the penalty structure. "We have seen the uplinking and downlinking guidelines. We will tweak the Bombay High Court judgment. But we will strengthen the regulations now," the bench remarked.