NEW DELHI: The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has sought the Government?s response on the petition filed by employees? associations challenging their de-recognition by Prasar Bharati.

A bench comprising Member Judicial Meera Chhibber and Member Administration Dr A K Misra directed the government to reply by 17 October on the plea of the employees for derecognising their unions.

The three petitioners - Association of Radio and TV Engineering Employees (ARTEE), AIR and DD Technical Employees Association, and the Programme Staff Association had approached CAT after Justice S Muralidhar of the Delhi High Court earlier this week said all matters under service rules should first be heard by the Tribunal and only an appeal can come to the Court.

The Associations had last week approached the Delhi High Court challenging the office order of 8 September de-recognising all associations. The Court heard the matter for three days.

The petitioners have alleged that Prasar Bharati had not only de-recognised their associations but also transferred 500-odd employees including 24 office bearers of various associations to different parts across the country.

According to the petitioners, nine associations of employees were formally recognised by the management and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry which has been talking to their representatives on various issues.

However, the order of 8 September said no association of employees of the pubcaster is recognised and, therefore, no employee can be given preferential treatment.

It further said all employees are to be treated in a fair and transparent manner and nullified an earlier order issued by Director General of All India Radio on 18 December 2008.

The staff of All India Radio and Doordarshan protested against this move and observed a day-long dharna from 10 am to 5 pm without disrupting work on 21 September.

In addition to the Union of India, the Secretary in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, Prasar Bharati Chairperson Mrinal Pande, and nominated member and officiating CEO Rajiv Takru have been named as respondents in the petition.

NEW DELHI: Even as Star One has announced the second edition of the programme to be aired shortly, the Delhi High Court today upheld the show cause notice issued by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on the telecast of two episodes (17 and 21 July 2009) of the controversial TV reality show " Sach Ka Saamna" by Star Plus.

Justice S. Muralidhar turned down the plea of Star India, and said that the content shown in the programme was "vulgar, indecent and against good taste and decency".

He said the programme where certain individual volunteers agree to sit on the hotseat after having gone through a lie detector test violated the Programme Code prescribed under the Cable Television Network Rules.

Star Plus had on 27 November 2009 been issued a warning by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for using language that was vulgar, indecent and against good taste and decency in its programme ?Sach Ka Saamna? through the questions by presenter Rajeev Khandelwal or the answers by the various personalities on the show after a notice issued to the channel on 22 July that year and a personal hearing given later on 8 September the same year.

The Ministry had said the channel should keep Indian ethos and culture in mind while formatting programmes, and enjoined upon it to strictly adhere to this guideline.

The warning was issued under the Uplinking Guidelines, the terms and conditions of the permission granted and the provisions of Section 20 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, asking the channel to strictly adhere to the Programme Code prescribed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 and Rules framed thereunder. .

The Channel had been issued a show cause notice for telecast/re-telecast of the programme on 17 July and 21 July as the contents of the programme appeared vulgar, indecent and against good taste and decency. It was observed that the anchor of the above programme sought replies to questions regarding infidelity, incest and other subjects that were not suitable for unrestricted public exhibition, especially keeping in view the Indian ethos and culture.

The questions and replies followed by a polygraph test, resulted in great embarrassment not only to the participants and their families but also to the viewers watching the programme along with their families. The questions appeared offending against good taste and decency; contained obscene words, appeared to malign and slander segments of social, public and moral life of the country and were not found suitable for unrestricted public exhibition.

The Inter Ministerial Committee (IMC) constituted by the Ministry to look into the complaints against violation of Programme and Advertising Codes had previewed the recording of the show and also considered the reply submitted by the channel before coming to its conclusion. It felt that the programmes were not suitable for unrestricted public exhibition. The channel violated Rule 6 (1) (a), (d), (i) and (o) of the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994 as amended from time to time.
 

NEW DELHI: The Broadcast Content Complaints Council (BCCC) has adjourned hearing on complaints relating to UTV Bindass? reality show Emotional Atyachaar, as the matter is sub judice before Delhi High Court. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has already given its views to the Court.

Set up by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) for general entertainment channels, the BCCC headed by Justice KL Shah had also issued notice to Colors for Khatron Ke Khiladi? on a complaint about cruelty to animals and also heard the Animal Welfare Board. However, it has not finalised its views on this matter.

IBF sources told indiantelevision.com that a complaint was received about a Bengali series on Star Jalsha, which showed excessive cruelty to children and the channel had taken corrective measures.

Similarly, the BCCC has also issued notices to the concerned channels for Ajab Desh Ki Ghazab Kahani with Rakhi Sawant (Imagine TV) and Date Trap (UTV Bindass).

While the last meeting of BCCC had to be put off because of lack of quorum, the next meeting is expected to be held in the last week of September.

NEW DELHI: Even as it blames Prasar Bharati for favouring the British firm SIS Live in the bidding for the Commonwealth Games broadcasting deal, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) says that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry delayed the tender process and left no options except to agree with the pubcaster‘s recommendations.

The CAG in its report on the Commonwealth Games with a full chapter on broadcasting also says Prasar Bharati amended the draft contract to allow SIS Live to "outsource almost the entire contract on the same day" to Indian firm Zoom Communications. SIS Live had been awarded the Rs 2.46 billion broadcasting contract.

In many ways, the CAG report supports most of the allegations framed by the V.K. Shunglu Committee appointed by the Prime Minister. However, the CAG report does not name then-Prasar Bharati CEO BS Lalli and former Doordarshan Director-General Aruna Sharma for causing a loss of Rs 1.35 billion as Shunglu had done. The report has, instead, pointed the finger at the Ministry and the pubcaster as a whole.
 
CAG in its section on the Media and Broadcasting Services says the award of the contract was flawed on several grounds.

"Lack of competition was facilitated by a rigid stand taken by Prasar Bharati at the stage of bidding, which restricted potential competitors, leaving only one ‘chosen‘ bidder," says the report. However, after SIS Live won the deal by virtue of being the sole bidder, the pubcaster amended the contract to "make it one-sided in favour of the SIS Live." Among the important amendments include the change of payment schedule, allowing a pre-Games payment of 60 per cent instead of 40 per cent of the contract.

The draft contract was amended to allow SIS Live to use "sub-contractors" such as Zoom Communications which went on to do the bulk of the work, but would not have been eligible to bid for the contract itself. The CAG report says this meant SIS Live was "acting essentially as a conduit" enabling the "back-door entry of Zoom".

The CAG also blames the oversight team, noting that the host broadcast management committee was marred by conflicts of opinion. "Of the 40 meetings for which minutes are available, only two are signed by all members. Objections to contract amendments were ignored."

Both I&B Minister Ambika Soni and Law Minister Veerappa Moily, who chaired the Oversight Committee together, did intervene, saying that changing the payment schedule should be re-considered. However, their intervention "did not have any lasting effect", notes the CAG.

I&B Ministry secretary Raghu Menon has admitted in a letter to the CAG that this was largely due to lack of time. The Ministry was "left with no alternative but to accede to the demands (of SIS Live), since non-telecast would be a matter of international embarrassment," says the report.

The CAG‘s report on the autonomous body also blames it for causing the loss of revenue of Rs 18 million by not allotting two vacant slots of its DTH platform despite 38 pending requests.

Menon wrote: "Given the circumstances and the fact that there is no time to initiate fresh process, the Ministry does not have the option of revisiting the issue." The secretary also mentioned that then Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar wanted the telecast to be ensured.

Soni at an Oversight Committee meeting constituted to provide policy direction on telecast issues, felt that changing the payment schedule can open legal intervention by other parties and said some parties chose to opt out of the bidding process because of the terms and conditions of the payment schedule.

In the same meeting, the CAG says, Moily felt the opinion of solicitor general Gopal Subramanium had not specifically given a finding on legality of changing the payment condition, which Soni said Subramanium should have done rather than leaving the decision to competent authority.