BHOPAL: The Press Council of India has set up a Committee to go into all cases of favors given to journalists by the Center, state governments and Union territories during the last decade, according to its chairman Justice P.B. Sawant.

Talking to reporters here, Justice Sawant said the committee had written letters to the cabinet secretary at the Center and the chief secretaries of all states and Union territories asking them to give information about favors provided to journalists in the last 10 years. Replying to questions, he said the committee had powers to issue summons and warrants to call for documents on favors provided to journalists.

Granting favors to journalists should be condemned in the strongest possible manner since state into the freedom of the press and compromised the integrity of those receiving them, he said.

The pension scheme announced last week by Madhya Pradesh government and the assistance given in times of distress to a journalist could not be classified as undue favor, he added. Justice Sawant, said it would be “suicidal” to allow the entry of foreign media into the country at the present juncture. The foreign media owners with enormous resources that their disposal, would offer huge salaries to journal, sell the newspapers at very competitive prices and soon the journalists as well as the press in the country would become ,“foreign controlled,” he added.

He said that Indian press barons did not hesitate to ask their journalists to it keeping in mind their interests and added that this interference would be much more in the case of foreign media owners.

Sawant ruled out the possibility of providing more teeth to the body by arming it with penal powers.

He said in case penal powers were given to the Press Council, sentences awarded by it could be challenged in Courts, where it might take a long time to be disposed of.

He said under these circumstances, the courts would take over the role of the Press Council whose decisions, at present, could not be challenged in court.

He said the Press Council received nearly 800 complaints on an average every year and pointed out that if a ‘sentence was awarded even in SO cases then the concerned persons or the institutions could appeal against in the high court.

Article extracted from this publication >> November 3, 1995