NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the central government over the ban on Kannada news channel Power TV from broadcasting, questioning the Centre about the frequency of such bans pending the disposal of applications for license renewal.

A bench led by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud asked additional solicitor general Vikramjit Banerjee to produce data on how many channels had applied for license renewal and, among those, how many were instructed to cease broadcasting pending approval.

“Produce data before us on how many channels applied for renewal of license and how many of these channels were asked to stop telecasting. We want to know the number of TV channels that applied for renewal in the last three years and, while pending approval, were ordered to go off air,” the bench, also comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, said.

The hearing on Power TV’s petition against the ban was, however, adjourned to July 22, as solicitor general Tushar Mehta was not present. The channel was represented through senior advocates Ranjit Kumar and Sunil Fernandes, assisted by advocate Mithu Jain.

Sinha, during the brief hearing, informed the bench that the channel resumed operations in view of the top court’s July 12 order that lifted the restraint on the channel from broadcasting.

The bench on July 12 emphasised its duty to intervene whenever the State attempts to suppress the free dissemination of news and information and stayed an executive order that stopped Power TV from broadcasting.

The court on that day remarked that the attempt to silence the channel seemed to be a “sheer political vendetta” because the channel wanted to air a sex tape. Notably, the channel and its additional director Rakesh Shetty have been at the forefront of campaigns against Janata Dal (Secular) leaders, including former parliamentarian Prajwal Revanna, who has been accused of sexually assaulting several women.

“He (channel) wanted to broadcast a sex scandal and the idea was to stop him from doing so. The idea is to completely blank out his voice. This is a sheer political vendetta and nothing else. And this court will be failing in its duty if it doesn’t allow him to exercise his rights,” the bench observed during the proceedings on July 12, in a powerful affirmation of the right to freedom of expression.

The Supreme Court’s intervention followed an earlier restraint by a single-judge bench of the Karnataka high court, which had halted Power TV’s broadcasts in June, citing the channel’s lack of a requisite license from the ministry of information and broadcasting. The channel’s permission to uplink and downlink news expired on October 12, 2021, and the renewal application was still pending. The restraint order stemmed from petitions filed by JD(S) leader Ramesh Gowda and Indian Police Service officer BR Ravikanthe Gowda, leading to an interim directive to cease the channel’s operations. On July 3, a division bench of the high court deferred the final decision to the Centre while keeping the interim order in place.

During the hearing of the channel’s appeal against the high court order, the bench on July 12 also criticised the central government for supporting the high court’s restraint without sufficient independent evaluation. It had added that the Centre was free to independently decide a show-cause notice issued on February 9 against Mitcon Infraprojects, the channel’s license holder, for continuing to broadcast Power TV despite the lapse of the license awarded to the firm, but it was not proper to stop the channel relying on the high court order which in turn cited the same notice.

Before the Supreme Court, channel’s additional director Rakesh Shetty filed a personal affidavit, stating that the channel was being constantly pressured to stop its “expose” on the alleged sex scandal involving Prajwal Revanna and that the actions against the channel were being targeted for its broadcast.

Revanna, who fled to Munich, Germany, in April, was arrested on May 31 after he returned to India. He faces three cases of sexual abuse, including allegations from a former house help, a former member of the Hassan zilla panchayat and a woman in her 60s. Explicit videos allegedly involving Prajwal surfaced in Hassan ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, leading to his suspension from the JD(S) party. The 33-year-old grandson of JD(S) patriarch and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda had failed in his bid to retain the Hassan parliamentary constituency in the recent polls.

Prajwal’s father HD Revanna, who is a legislator in the Karnataka state assembly, is also accused in the police complaint lodged by a former employee of the family. He has denied the allegations, calling them a political conspiracy.