Ban on BBC series: Top court seeks government’s response

Bench refuses to pass interim order, posts case for hearing in April

The Supreme Court yesterday issued notice to the federal government and sought its response to a plea seeking direction to restrain it from censoring the BBC documentary relating to the 2002 Gujarat Riots.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and MM Sundresh asked the Central government to file its response within three weeks and posted it for hearing in April.

The bench refused to pass interim order on the plea saying it cannot pass any interim order without hearing the government and directed it to produce all records on the next hearing date.

“We direct respondents to produce original records on the next date of hearing,” the bench stated in its order.

Secret order

Senior advocate CU Singh appearing for Trina moo l Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Mahua Moitra, senior journalist N Ram, and advocate Prashant Bhushan told the bench the IT Rules mandate the publication of the emergency blocking orders within 48 hours.

The government blocked the documentary on the basis of the secret order, which was used by universities acting against students screening the documentary, Singh said.

The apex court also issued notice to the Centre on a PIL filed by advocate ML Sharma challenging government orders to block the documentary.

The petition filed by N Ram and others sought direction to quash all orders which directly and indirectly block the online access to BBC’s documentary India: The Modi Question.

Their plea termed the Centre’s decision to block the documentary as “manifestly arbitrary” and “unconstitutional” and further sought restoration of their tweets sharing the links of the documentary, which were taken down by Twitter following Centre’s orders.