10 April 2018: Eight organisations representing editors, working journalists and owners of the media in the country urged upon the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to immediately intervene to defer the meeting of the truncated Press Council of India on 11 April as it consisted of eight members- five MPs and three official nominees- out of 28 members, leaving out representatives of the print media organisations, whose names were yet to be notified. They also requested him to instruct the I&B Ministry to include representatives of journalists unions/associations in Central Press Accreditation Committee (CPAC), which were kept out, in clear violation of the guidelines.
Eight organisations, the Indian Newspapers Society (INS), Indian Journalists union (IJU), All India Newspaper Editors Conference (AINEC), Working News Cameramen Association (WNCA), National Union of Journalists (India) (NUJ (I)), Hindi Samachar Patra Sammelan, All India Small and Medium Newspapers Federation and Press Association, in a joint letter to the Prime Minister said on Tuesday that holding of such a truncated meeting was unfair and went against the spirit of the Press Council Act.
The joint letter said “the procedure adopted for reconstituting the 13th PCI and the CPAC was arbitrary, which if not reversed, would gravely impact media freedom and access to information, critical to democracy. In both cases, the outgoing Chairman of the Press Council and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, have chosen to brazenly do away with tradition and interpret the rules and guidelines”.
Reminding the Prime Minister the critical role played by the media role in strengthening public opinion and enhancing India’s vibrant democracy, they requested him to immediately intervene, “as you did on the ‘Fake News’ order, to have the meeting deferred till the full Council was reconstituted and “restore the credibility and sanctity of the Press Council of India. This will go a long way in protecting and preserving the freedom of the Press, vital to democracy”.
The organisations rubbished the claim of the PCI Chairman that the selection of names from the panels were done according to the law and reiterated their charge that the Chairman kept out organisations such as Editors Guild of India and National Union of Journalists (I) on narrow interpretation of the rules and the Act. They said the PCI statement cleverly blamed the Associations of compromising the ´autonomy and neutrality of the Council’ to evade responsibility of the Chairman for the sorry state of affairs. They wondered why the Chairman was silent on the meeting of the truncated council on 11 April in his rejoinder.
