The Hindu : It is a mis-statement: CEC

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Monday, Mar 01, 2004

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It is a mis-statement: CEC

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 29. The Chief Election Commissioner, T. S. Krishnamurthy, today criticised the Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Ravi Shankar Prasad, some Ministers and senior journalists for making statements and writing articles as if the Election Commission had banned advertisements by political parties on television.

He clarified that what the Commission had told the Government was that it was only implementing the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 but an impression had been created that the Commission had imposed a ban.

He said: "There have been gross mis-statements that the Commission acted irresponsibly with regard to the issue of advertisements on electronic media and some Ministers also made statements. There could not be a mis-statement of the facts than this and it is unfortunate and irresponsible that even responsible journalists had written this in their articles and even Ministers had been saying this."

Mr. Krishnamurthy was "surprised and shocked that an impression was sought to be created that the bureaucrats of the Commission had banned advertisements on their own. It was unfortunate that the media did not even bother to verify the facts before writing their articles."

He clarified that there had been no discrimination between the electronic and print media. Section 6 of the CTNR Act and Rules 7 and 17 under the Act were clear about the role of the electronic media during general elections.

Discussions were held over the last few days with the Information and Broadcasting Secretary, Pavan Chopra, in this connection and Mr. Chopra had made it clear that the Act was very much in force. "If people have grievances with regard to implementation of this Act, they could look for action elsewhere," the CEC said.

Section 5 of the Act states that "no person shall transmit or re-transmit through a cable service any programme unless such programme is in conformity with the prescribed programme code." Section 6 says "no person shall transmit or re-transmit through a cable service any advertisement unless such advertisement is in conformity with the prescribed advertisement code."

Rule 7 (1) is that "advertisement carried in the cable service shall be so designed as to conform to the laws of the country and should not offend morality, decency and religious susceptibilities of the subscribers." Rule 7(3) says that "no advertisement shall be permitted, the objects whereof, are wholly or mainly of a religious or political nature, and must not be directed towards any religion or political end."

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