The ban by the Central government on Malayalam news channel MediaOne, without assigning any cause was vehemently opposed by the seasoned lawyer Dushyant Dave.
While speaking before a bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli, Dave, said that the court of law has relied on this without showing us the file.
Advocate Dave was very critical of the file submitted in sealed cover blurted out that with greatest respect to the judge,we do not know what bulls**t may have been stated in the file.
Later on the Senior Advocate had to eat his own words and hd to apologise for his word choice.
Dushyant Dave blurted out the bullshit statement while the court was hearing the matter pertaining to the appeal by MediaOne which had challenge the Kerala High Court Division Bench judgment which upheld MediaOne ‘channels security clearance.
Dave during the hearing session argued about argued about the right of the press, which cannot be taken . He further added that the action by the court is wholly unconstitutional and arbitrary, which makes a mockery of Constitutional principles.
Talking of the technicalities he said that as per the Programme Code that governs the operation of news channels it is a mandatory 45 day notice period for removal which is served but was not given in this case.
Dushyant Dave said that his prime concern was that the owner of the channel was from minority community annd that was the reason for its ban.Justice Kohli asked,
“Just asking, that during the hearing did the advocate ask for the Division for a copy of the records?”To which Dave replied in yes and added that a Constitution Bench has said this is completely wrong.
Dave then elaborated the cons of the sealed covers in court cases, stating,
that sealed covers have become very common in last 7-8 years, it is a dangerous precedent, we have seen it in Rafale and CBI Director cases.”
On February 8 this year, a single-judge of the Kerala High Court had upheld the decision of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B Ministry) to revoke the Malayalam channel’s licence. The Court had opined that the material handed over to it in a sealed cover indicated that the MHA had sufficient cause to deny security clearance to the channel, thereby justifying the ban.
During the hearing of the appeal against this order, the Central government had told the Division Bench of the High Court that the decision to revoke the licence was based on credible national security concerns.