Slamming television news channels again for creating “divisions among society”, the Supreme Court has asked how many times an anchor has been taken off air over a telecast.

A bench of Justices KM Joseph and B V Nagarathna made the scathing remarks while hearing petitions on hate speech on Friday.

“How many times have you taken off anchors? Have you dealt with anchors in the way you send a message,” Justice K M Joseph asked advocate Nisha Bhambani, who was representing the News Broadcasting Standards Authority, when she said that the authority took action over each complaint by its members, according to the Indian Express.

“Checks and balances are certainly not being advised in a manner which produces result…many of these TV programmes, you don’t allow people to talk on an equal basis. Participants you don’t want to express their views, you will either mute them, or allow the other person to go on the whole time unchallenged,” the court told Additional Solicitor General K M Nataraj, over his response on a question on content moderation, the paper reported.

The government told the apex court that it could consider legislation to deal with hate speeches and crimes when the bench said that “the buck stops with the Centre”. However, the court said that FIRs should not be filed for “namesake”.

“One of the ways (to exercise the check and balance) is if you have an erring anchor, the key actually is handled by the anchor, in a live programme the fairness of the programme is ultimately with the anchor, if the anchor is not acting in a fair manner…if you take strong action against anchors, what will happen (is), immediately they will know it’s not going to pay. On the other hand, I will have to pay a heavy price, I will be taken off the air…There is a power to take off anchors also,” said Justice Joseph, according to the Indian Express.

The court noted that it is “ultimately” the anchor and the editorial who control the content.

The bench also referred to the coverage on the incident involving allegations of a man urinating on another passenger on a plane. “The kind of words that had been used for him, he is an undertrial. Let them do what they want for TRP. But please see to it that when you use words, you don’t denigrate anyone. Human dignity is involved…It’s a part of Article 21,” the court said, according to the Indian Express.

The court had earlier asked the DGPs of Delhi, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh to take suo motu action against those indulging in “hate speech” without waiting for formal complaints.

In September last year, the court had asked why the government was being a “mute spectator”. “Government should not take an adversarial stand but assist,” it had said. It had also criticised TV channels and referred to noisy debates on news channels. “TV content is for benefit of listener, how will they make up their mind when there's a babble of voices.”

While commenting on how anchors fan hate speech, Justice Joseph had said, “They are not being dealt with firmly. They can be taken off air, fined, if such sanction comes...Any anchor will have their own views and won't be divorced from the channel's business lines. What is wrong is people invited not being allowed to express their own view, being muted or run down. Their right is lesser than that of the listener,” he said.