Breaking: Division Bench Of Kerala HC Refuses Interim Order To MediaOne, Reserves Judgment In Appeal

The Division Bench of the Chief Justice S.Manikumar and Justice Shaji P. Chaly have refused to pass any interim order in the appeal filed by the company that owns MediaOne, the Malayalam news channel that was taken off air due to denial of security clearance by the Home Ministry (MHA).

The Division Bench has instead reserved its judgment in the matter.

The Single Judge had held after perusing the filed produced before it by the Home Ministry that the recommendations of the Committee of Officers to the MHA and accepted by the MHA, are justified by supporting materials.

Though the Single Judge had granted interim order when the Writ Petition was pending, the prayer of the Petitioner channel for continuing the interim protection after the case was decided, was refused and the channel had to be taken off air.

The Single Judge had perused the files produced buy the Ministry of Home Affairs to ascertain the reasons for refusing clearance on nation security grounds.

In its appeal before the Division Bench, the Channel had objected to the reliance placed by the Single Judge on a verses from the 'Atrisamhita' on importance of national security.

"...reliance placed by the learned single Judge on 'Atrisamhitha' also is improper as the issue involved in the matter should have been adjudicated strictly in tune with the Constitutional parameters and not by quoting archaic vedic verses and the both are one to one distinct and propound different dogma altogether", it had stated in its appeal.

Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave appeared for the Appellent before the Court, whereas Additional Solicitor General Mr. Aman Lekhi appeared for the Central government.