Kerala High Court dismisses MediaOne's appeal, upholds telecast ban

The Kerala High Court has dismissed MediaOne's appeal against a single judge order that had upheld the channel's ban, LiveLaw reported today. The ban had been imposed after the ministry of information and broadcasting refused to renew the channel's broadcast licence on grounds of security.

According to LiveLaw, a division bench of Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice Shaji P Chaly upheld the ministry's order.

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.

On February 8, the Kerala High Court upheld the ministry’s decision. Two intervening petitions had been filed by some of the channel's employees as well as the Kerala Union for Working Journalists.

Last month, a group of journalists, editors, lawyers, activists and parliamentarians had issued a statement calling it a “clampdown on broader press freedom in India”.