Kerala High Court upholds I&B ministry order barring transmission of MediaOne news channel

The Kerala High Court has upheld the I&B ministry's order revoking news channel MediaOne's licence to broadcast.

Justice N Nagaresh said he had "gone through the files" of the ministry of home affairs which had "called for various intelligence agencies" to justify the denial of security clearance to MediaOne.

"Based on the inputs from these agencies," the judge said, "it has been decided not to renew the security clearance."

MediaOne, a Malayalam news channel, had announced on January 31 that it had gone off the air after the ministry cited "security reasons" to block its transmission.

"The central government is unwilling to share the details of that," the channel's editor, Pramod Raman, said in a statement. The channel then filed a writ petition before the high court, seeking that the ministry's order be set aside.

The high court then temporarily deferred the ministry's order until the hearing concluded. Last week, the court called for files from the home ministry on the "security reasons", Bar and Bench reported.

According to LiveLaw, "two intervening petitions" had also been filed in the matter by some of the channel's employees and the Kerala Union of Working Journalists.

It should be noted that MediaOne's broadcast had been temporarily blocked in March 2020 after the Delhi riots, for being "critical towards Delhi police and RSS".