BANGALORE: The Union Government has informed the Karnataka High Court that it has constituted a committee under the chairmanship of the Additional Secretary, Information and Broadcasting, to take suo motu cognisance of complaints of violation of the programme and advertising code by private television networks.

The Government told the court on Friday that the codes were defined in Rule 6 and 7 of the Cable Television Network Rules, 1984.

The committee will have as members the joint secretaries of Home Affairs, Law and Justice, Women and Child Development, Health and Family Welfare, External Affairs, Defence and Broadcasting departments, and a representative of the Advertising Standards Council of India.

Heads of committees

Committees to monitor television channels have been set up at the State and district levels. The district magistrate or the police commissioner will head the district committees, which will forward complaints to the Additional Secretary, Information and Broadcasting.

The Centre has filed an affidavit containing details of the committees following a petition by an advocate, A.V. Amarnathan, who said that two Kannada channels, Udaya and ETV, were telecasting crime serials.

Udaya, he said, was telecasting "Crime Story", and ETV "Crime Diary". The serials were investigating crimes, recording and telecasting the views of police officials and interviewing criminals, victims and relatives of victims.

In some cases, the serials were presenting what they called facts even before a first information report was filed. This was trial by the media, the petitioner said, and added that the serials interfered with judicial proceedings.

Mr. Amarnathan said a Division Bench of the High Court had permitted action against the media for distortion of facts and presentation of cases before they were heard by courts. The continued telecast of serials constituted contempt of court, he added. He urged the Bench to take cognisance of telecast of crime serials and initiate contempt proceedings.

The Centre, represented by Additional Solicitor General Aravind Kumar, filed an affidavit on the constitution of the two committees to monitor any violation of norms by private television networks.

It said there was no direct regulation of satellite channels which were uplinked from other countries. It was only recently that the Government had issued guidelines providing for registration of TV channels. The Government, it said, had decided to set up a broadcasting content authority to receive and dispose of complaints about the content of TV programmes.

Hearing adjourned

A Division Bench comprising Justice S.R. Bannurmath and Justice Subash Adi, which is hearing the petition, adjourned further hearing of the case till July 7, and directed the Advocate-General to be present on that day.

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