CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW

UNIVERSITY, PATNA

PRESS, MEDIA AND TELECOM

LAWPROJECT

ON

REPORT OF FIRST PRESS COMMISSION

SUBMITTED TO: DR. G.P PANDEY & DR. KUMAR GAURAV

(Faculty of PMT LAW)

PREETI RANJANA

5th Year, 9th Semester

Section B

Roll no. 776

1
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It is my privilege to record my deep sense to perform

gratitude to those who helped me in completion of this
project.
In making of this project many people helped me
immensely directly or indirectly. I sincerely acknowledge the
help rendered to me by our faculty Dr. G.P.Pandey & Dr.
Kumar Gaurav who had given me an idea and
encouragement in making this project. I also acknowledge
the help of library staff and my friends for being cordial in
order to make conducive environment of the CNLU Hostel.

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AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To present detailed study of recommendations given by first press commission and to study the after
effect of the report on Indian Press scenario.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The researcher has opted for Doctrinal Methodology for this project.

SOURCES OF DATA
The researcher has opted for primary sources like statute, case laws and secondary sources of
data like books, newspaper, internet sites etc.

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 CONTENTS
SR.NO TOPIC PAGE NO.
.
1. INTRODUCTION 5-6
2. THE FIRST PRESS COMMISSION 6-10
3. PRESS COMMISSION REPORT AND AFTER 10-13

4. WORKING OF PRESENT PRESS COUNCIL 13-15

FORMED UNDER ACT OF 1979

5. CONCLUSION 16

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

4
Press Council is a mechanism for the Press to regulate itself. The raison d’etre of this unique
institution is rooted in the concept that in a democratic society the press needs at once to be
free and responsible1.

If the Press is to function effectively as the watchdog of public interest, it must have a secure
freedom of expression, unfettered and unhindered by any authority, organised bodies or
individuals. But, this claim to press freedom has legitimacy only if it is exercised with a due
sense of responsibility. The Press must, therefore, scrupulously adhere to accepted norms of
journalistic ethics and maintain high standards of professional conduct.

Where the norms are breached and the freedom is defiled by unprofessional conduct, a way
must exist to check and control it. But, control by Government or official authorities may
prove destructive of this freedom. Therefore, the best way is to let the peers of the profession,
assisted by a few discerning laymen to regulate it through a properly structured representative
impartial machinery. Hence, the Press Council.

A need for such a mechanism has been felt for a long time both by the authorities as well as
the Press itself all over the world, and a search for it resulted in the setting up of the first
Press Council known as the Court of Honour for the Press in Sweden in 1916. The idea
gained quick acceptance in other Scandinavian countries, and later in other parts of Europe,
Canada, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Today, the Press Councils or similar other media
bodies are in place in more than four dozen nations.

The first Press Commission of India expressed mixed feelings about the "standards and
performance of the press”2. It observed that despite shortcomings such as yellow journalism,
sensationalism, malicious attacks on public men, indecency and vulgarity, the country
possesses a number of newspapers of which any country may be proud of. Many journalists
who appeared before the commission assured it that “if the responsibility of regulating the
profession is left to the journalists themselves, they would enhance the prestige of the
profession and ensure that Indian journalism progress along the healthy lines"3.

The Commission concluded that the best way of maintaining professional standards in
Journalism would be "to bring into existence body of people principally connected with the
industry whose responsibility it would be to arbitrate on doubtful points and to censure
anyone guilty of infraction of the code." The body recommended by the Commission was a
statutory all-India Press Council4. Maintaining editorial independence, objectivity of news
presentation, fairness of comment, fostering the development of the press, protecting it from
external pressures and regulation of the conduct of the press in the matter of such
objectionable writing as was not legally punishable were also suggested as the objects and
functions of the proposed Council.

1
Press commission report, pg-21 via http://www.pib.nic.in/archive/docs/DVD_52/ACC%20NO%201018-
BR/INF-1954-07-22_479.pdf, accessed on 17.11.2016.
2
Report of the First Press Commission (1952-54). Chapter XIX, pp 339-56.
3
Ibid pg. 352
4
Ibid, pr , 947, P. 352.

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The Press Council of India was first established in 1966 under the Press Council Act, 1965
with the object the freedom of the press and of maintaining and improving the standards of
newspapers in India"5. Though the first press Commission had recommended the setting up of
such a statutory and autonomous body as early as in 1954, it came into existence only at the
end of a duo decennial exercise of chequered legislation. The Bill introduced in 1956 for the
constitution of a press council lapsed with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha in 1957 and
nothing was done hereafter , despite the continuing demand from various journalist
organisations, till 1962 when the National Integration Council called for- the immediate
establishment of a press council. A fresh Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in July 1963
and, for- Lack of priority in the government list of parliamentary business, it took two full
years for it to become an Act6 on 1st November 1965. Even then it took another eight months
for the actual establishment of the Council on 4 July 1966 with Justice J R Mudholkar, a
sitting judge of the Supreme Court, as chairman.

CHAPTER 2

THE FIRST PRESS COMMISSION

After independence there was a constant demand by editors and journalists urging the
government of India to inquire into the state of the press in India and put forward
recommendations that can be enacted for the benefit of the press. Thus, the then Prime
Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, announced the constitution of the First Press Commission under
the chairmanship of Justice G.S Rajyadhyksha, on September 23, 1952. The other members
of the Commission were, C.P Ramasamy Iyer, Acharya Narendra Dev, Dr.Zakir Husain, Dr.
V.K.R.V Rao, P.H Patwardhan, T.N Singh, Jaipal Sing, J. Natarajan, A.R Bhat, and M.
Chalapathi Rao. The commission was asked to examine the state of the press in the country
and its present and future lines of development. It had wide terms of reference.

The commission submitted its report on July 14, 1954, after two years of work. The
report had 3 parts. The first part contained the recommendations, part II contained the history
of journalism in India and part III contained the memorandums, questionnaire, reports of
readership surveys etc. The major recommendations of the commission were the following7.

 To safeguard the freedom of the press and help the press to maintain its independence.

5
Preamble of the Act.
6
The Press Council Act (34 of) 1965.
7
Vir Bala Aggarwal, V. S. Gupta, Handbook of Journalism and Mass Communication, Concept Publishing
Company, New Delhi, 2001, pg-160-164. 

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 To censure objectionable types of journalistic conduct and by all other possible means
to build up a code in accordance with the highest professional standards.

 To keep under review any development likely to restrict the supply and dissemination
of news of public interest and importance.

 To encourage the growth of a sense of responsibility and public service among those
engaged in the profession of journalism.

 To study the developments in the press which may tend towards concentration or
monopoly and if necessary, to suggest remedies.

 To publish reports atleast once an year, recording its work and reviewing the
performance of the press, its developments and factors affecting them

 To improve methods of recruitment, education and training for the profession by the
creation of suitable agencies for the purpose such as Press Institutes.

 The news agencies should not merely keep themselves from bias and follow strictly
the principles of integrity, objectivity and comprehensiveness in its coverage of news, but it
should also appear to the public that the news agencies are maintaining such a course.

 The Commission found that the emoluments received by the journalists were on the
whole unsatisfactory and recommended the appointment of a Wage Board for the working
journalists.

 The Commission recommended the appointment of Registrar of Newspapers for India

(RNI). As a result of this recommendation the office of RNI verifies and regulates the
availability of newspapers, registers them, containing detailed information on newspaper. The
office also issues entitlement certificates to the newspapers/periodicals for the import of news
print and printing machinery and allied materials required by newspapers.

The major recommendations of Press Commission

Press Council: The Commission’s first recommendation was to constitute a Press Council.
The proposed council is to be a 25 member body in which 13 or more should be working
journalists, with at least 10 years of experience. It recommended the appointment of a
chairperson who should be either a sitting or a retired High Court judge. The Council is to
look into the freedom, independence, standard, and development of the press.

Registrar of newspapers in India: A Press Registrar should be appointed for the country as a
whole. It will be the responsibility of this officer to bring out an annual report which will
contain the facts and figures relating to the industry.

Price-Page Schedule: A minimum price should be fixed at which papers of a particular size
can be sold. It also recommended that the quantum of advertisement in a week’s issue of a
newspaper should not exceed 40 per cent of the total print area.

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Advertising Council: An Advertising Council may be created to advertise on the ethics of
advertising, to organize market research and to carry out readership surveys.

Newsprint: Apart from increasing the manufacture of newsprint the State Trading
Corporation should acquire indigenous newsprint and sell it along with imported newsprint at
equated price.

News Agencies: There should not be State-owned or State-controlled news agencies. The
government should give no assistance to the news agencies in order to ensure their
independent operations.

Government Advertisements: With regard to the allocation of government advertisements,

there should not be any discrimination between newspapers merely on the grounds of their
political or communal backgrounds. The government should place advertisements on the
basis of circulation and target area.

Declaration of ownership: The complete statements of the names of proprietors and

responsible executives of the newspaper should be published periodically.

Monopolies: Diversity of opinion should be promoted in the interests of free discussion of

public affairs. The Press Registrar should bring to the notice of the Press Council if any
monopolies arise in the newspaper industry.

Law on Contempt of legislature: Regarding the law of contempt of legislature, the Press
Commission recommended some changes in the Criminal law and recommended codification
of the privileges of legislatures and legislators.

Foreign News: There should be no restriction on the flow of foreign news from whatever
sources it comes. It should be one of the functions of Indian news agencies to provide a
service of Indian news for the use of other countries8.

The period since the first Press Commission gave its report in 1954, has seen radical changes
not only in the growth and significance of the press but also in legal thought affecting the
press which, in India and abroad, has become markedly libertarian. Ironically, with the
intensification of political conflict in India, the press came under attack from authority whose
ideological premises were anything but libertarian.

The Emergency and press censorship left the press in a battered shape. The Second Press
Commission was set up, as Mr. L. K. Advani, the Minister for Information & Broadcasting
said in the Rajya Sabha on May 18, 1978, for re-examining its (the press’) place, status and
functioning in a democratic set-up, more so in view of the recent experience when the, press
was subjected to a series of legal and administrative assaults. To determine the further steps
that need to be taken to restore it to full vigour and health was the main charge of the
Commission.

8
History of Press Council, available on http://presscouncil.nic.in/OldWebsite/history.htm, accessed on
17.11.2016.

8
The Second Press Commission’s report reveals its wilful refusal to address itself to this task,
and in this the Government of India fully shares the blame. It completely reconstituted the
Commission headed by Mr.P.K. Goswami, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, and selected
as his successor Mr. K.K.Mathew, a former Supreme Court judge who had in his dissenting
judgment in the Bennett Coleman Case (1973) and also in his report on Mr.L.N. Mishra’s
death (1977) revealed a concept of press freedom which allowed authority ,larger powers of
regulation.

A joint minute of dissent by four members of the Commission on diffusion of press

ownership, pricepage schedule and a statutory news-to-advertisement ratio rightly remarks
that the relevant section of the Report leans heavily on the theories propounded in the
dissenting judgment of Mr. Justice K. K. Mathew.

The theories are so far-reaching that their impact is evident on the entire report and the
dissenters, too, went along with many illiberal recommendations. In the Bennett Coleman
Case, Mr. Justice Mathew expatiated at length on the vagueness of the concept of freedom of
speech and argued that what is required is an interpretation of Article 19 (I) (a) (right to
freedom of speech) which focuses on the idea that restraining the hand of the
government is quite useless in assuring free speech if a restraint on access is effectively
secured by private groups.

It is unnecessary to spell out the implications of such an approach in practical terms. The
Report laments: We are in the grip of a romantic theory of freedom of speech, namely, the
belief that the market place is freely accessible... But what of those ideas which are
unacceptable to the media and which do not find access therein? That the remedy prescribed,
state regulation, is worse than the disease diagnosed has escaped the majority.

However, the minority are in manifest error in saying one unanimous conclusion of the
Commission is that the present constitutional provision may not be adequate to ensure a free
press. The case for. a constitutional amendment in this regard has been made in Chapter IV of
the Commission’s Report. When one turns to that Chapter one is confronted with a directly
opposite recommendation: No useful purpose will.., be served by inserting a separate
provision in the Constitution conferring freedom of the press as that concept is already
embodied in Article 19(1 )(a) and by inserting such a provision no particular benefit can be
conferred on a noncitizen like a company9.

PROTECTION
The report recommends merely that all Indian companies engaged in the business of
communication and whose shareholders are citizens should be deemed to be citizens for the
purpose of the relevant clauses of Article 19 (which is confined to citizens alone),
presumably by amending the Citizenship Act 1955.

9
A.G. Noorini, The first and second press commission report available on
http://whizcom.blogspot.in/2011/01/first-and-second-press-commission.html accessed on 17.11.2016.

9
The Report criticises the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Bennett Coleman Case where relief
was given to the shareholders, editors and printers as citizens, an aspect on which Mr.
Mathew’s dissent in the case was silent. But the graver flaw in the Report is its refusal to
recommend constitutional protection for freedom to the press merely because that concept is
already embodied in Article 19 (1) (a)

The US constitution advisedly protects both free speech and free press. Justice Stewart
pointed out that the First Amendment speaks separately of freedom of speech and freedom of
the press is no constitutional accident but an acknowledgment of the critical role played by
the press in American society. The US Supreme Court has time and again recognised the
importance of protecting the freedom of the press as an institution. A constitutional
amendment to place the freedom of the press beyond any question, was desired by the
minority but its impression that the Report recommends such a measure is wrong. The case
was lost by default.

None of the US rulings is cited in the report. Their cumulative effect is enormous. It has been
recognised that the press is an agent of the public and that terms of access (to news) that are
reasonably imposed on individual members of the public may, if they impede effective
reporting without sufficient justification, be unreasonable as applied to journalists and news
gathering is entitled to protection10.

CHAPTER 3

PRESS COMMISSION REPORT AND AFTER

The report stated that the best way of maintaining professional standards of journalism would
be to bring into existence a body of of people principally connected with the industry whose
responsibility it would be to arbitrate on doubtful points and to censure any one guilty of
infraction of the code of journalistic ethics.
The Commission recommended the setting up of a Press Council. Among the objectives
visualised for the Council were : " to safeguard the freedom of the press", " to ensure on the
part of the Press the maintenance of High standards of public taste and to foster due sense of
both the rights and responsibilities of citizenship" and " to encourage the growth of sense of
responsibility and public service among all those engaged in the profession of journalism."
The Commission, recommended the establishment of the Council on a statutory basis on the
ground that the Council should have legal authority to make inquiries as otherwise each
member, as well as the Council as a whole, would be subject to the threat of legal action from
those whom it sought to punish by exposure.
The Commission said that the Council should consist of men who would command general
confidence and respect of the profession and should have 25 members excluding the

10
Ibid 9.

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Chairman. The Chairman was to be a person who was or had been a Judge of the High Court
and was to be nominated by the Chief Justice of India11.
The Press Council of India was first constituted on 4 th July, 1966 as an autonomous, statutory,
quasi-judicial body, with Shri Justice J R Mudholkar, then a Judge of the Supreme Court, as
Chairman. The Press Council Act, 1965, listed the following functions of the Council in
furtherance of its objects :
 to help newspapers to maintain their independence;
 to build up a code of conduct for newspapers and journalists in accordance with
high professional standards;
 to ensure on the part of newspapers and journalists the maintenance of high
standards of public taste and foster a due sense of both the rights and responsibilities
of citizenship;
 to encourage the growth of a sense of responsibility and public service among all
those engaged in the profession of journalism;
 to keep under review any development likely to restrict the supply and
dissemination of news of public interest and importance;
 to keep under review such cases of assistance received by any newspaper or news
agency in India from foreign sources, as are referred to it by the Central Government.
Provided that nothing in this clause shall preclude the Central Government from dealing with
any case of assistance received by a newspaper or news agency in India from foreign sources
in any other manner it thinks fit; 
 to promote the establishment of such common service for the supply and
dissemination of news to newspapers as may, from time to time, appear to it to be
desirable;
 to provide facilities for the proper education and training of persons in the
profession of journalism;
 to promote a proper functional relationship among all classes of persons engaged
in the production or publication of newspapers;
 to study developments which may tend towards monopoly or concentration of
ownership of newspapers, including a study of the ownership or financial structure of
newspapers, and if necessary, to suggest remedies therefor;
 to promote technical or other research;
 to do such other acts as may be incidental or conducive to the discharge of the
above functions.
The Act of 1965 provided that the Council shall consist of a Chairman and 25 other members.
Of the 25 members, 3 were to represent the two houses of Parliament, 13 were to be from
amongst the working journalists, of which not less than 6 were to be editors who did not own
11
Emergence and revival of Press Council available on
http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/5634/6/06_chapter%203.pdf accessed on 17.11.2016.

11
or carry on the business of management of newspapers and the rest were to be the persons
having special knowledge or practical experience in respect of education and science, law,
literature and culture. By an amendment of the Act in 1970, the membership of the Council
was raised by one to provide a seat for persons managing the news agencies.
The Chairman under the Act on 1965, was to be nominated by the Chief Justice of India. Of
the three Members of Parliament, two representing Lok Sabha were to be nominated by the
Speaker of the Lok Sabha and one representing Rajya Sabha, was to be nominated by the
Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. The remaining 22 members were to be selected by a three-man
Selection Committee comprising the Chief Justice of India, Chairman of the Press Council
and a nominee of the President of India. The Chairman and the members were to hold office
for a period of three years provided that no member could hold office for a period exceeding
six years in the aggregate.
When in the early years of the Council’s existence a grievance was aired about the selection
of a category of members, Parliament embarked on a search for a meticulous formula which
would ensure uncompromising impartiality and fairness in the selection of Chairman and
other members. This led to the amendment of the 1965 Act entrusting this work to a
Committee comprising the incumbent of the three highest offices which are considered as an
embodiment of these attributes, namely, Chairman of Rajya Sabha, Speaker of Lok Sabha
and Chief Justice of India. But, the pursuit for still less subjective scheme continued. Even a
statistical formula was evolved for equitable presentation of the various representative
organisations of the profession.
As has been referred to earlier, composition of the nominating committee was changed by an
amendment of the said Act in 1970, according to which the Chairman and the members from
the press were to be nominated by a Nominating Committee consisting of the Chairman of
the Rajya Sabha, the Chief Justice of India and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.
The amending Act of 1970 introduced several other provisions in the Act. The manner of
selection of persons of special knowledge or practical experience was specified. It provided
that of the three persons to be nominated from among such people, one each shall be
nominated by the University Grants Commission, the Bar Council of India and the Sahitya
Academy. It also provided for raising the membership of the Council to give one seat to the
persons managing the news agencies. Out of the six seats for proprietors and managers of
newspapers, two each were earmarked for big, medium and small newspapers. No working
journalist who owned or carried on the business of management of newspapers could now be
nominated in the category of working journalists. Also, it was specified that not more than
one person interested in any newspaper or group of newspapers under the same control, could
be nominated from the categories of editors, other working journalists, proprietors and
managers.
The Nominating Committee was empowered to review any nomination on a representation
made to it by any notified association or by any person aggrieved by it or otherwise. The
amended Act also barred renomination of a retiring member for more than one term. Where
any association failed to submit a panel of names when invited to do so, the Nominating
Committee could ask for panels from other associations or persons of the category concerned

12
or nominate members after consultation with such other such individuals or interests
concerned as it thought fit.
Under the original Act, the Chairman was nominated by the Chief Justice of India. But, after
this amendment, nomination of the Chairman was also left to the Nominating Committee.
The Council set up under the Act of 1965 functioned till December 1975. During the Internal
Emergency, the Act was repealed and the Council abolished w.e.f. 1/1/1976.

CHAPTER 4
WORKING OF PRESENT PRESS COUNCIL FORMED UNDER ACT OF 1979
A fresh legislation providing for the establishment of the Council was enacted in 1978 and
the institution came to be reviewed in the year 1979 with the very same object of preserving
the freedom of the press and of maintaining and improving the standards of Press in India.
The present Council is a body corporate having perpetual succession. It consists of a
Chairman and 28 other members. Of the 28 members, 13 represent the working journalists.
Of whom 6 are to be editors of newspapers and remaining 7 are to be working journalists
other than editors. 6 are to be from among persons who own or carry on the business of
management of newspapers12. One is to be from among the persons who manage news
agencies. Three are to be persons having special knowledge or practical experience in respect
of education and science, law and literature and culture. The remaining five are to Members
of Parliament : three from Lok Sabha, and two from Rajya Sabha.
The Act provided a totally non-subjective procedure which leaves no scope for the
interference or influence by Government or any other agency was evolved with remarkable
ingenuity.
The objects of present Press Council are substantially the same as were laid down under the
Act of 1965.
FUNCTIONING OF THE COUNCIL
The Council discharges its functions primarily through the medium of its Inquiry
Committees, adjudicating on complaint cases received by it against the Press for violation of
the norms of journalism or by the Press for interference with its freedom by the authorities.
There is a set procedure for lodging a complaint with the Council.
A complainant is required essentially to write to the editor of the respondent newspaper,
drawing his attention to what the complainant considers to be in breach of journalistic ethics
or an offence against public taste. Apart from furnishing to the Council a cutting of the matter
complained against, it is incumbent on the complainant to make and subscribe to a

12
D. Sharma, Modern Journalism Reporting and Writing, Deep and Deep Publications, New Delhi, 2005, pg-
95.

13
declaration that to the best of his knowledge and belief he has placed all the relevant facts
before the Council and that no proceedings are pending in any court of law in respect of any
matter alleged in the complaint; and that he shall inform the Council forthwith if during the
pendency of the inquiry before the Council any matter alleged in the complaint becomes the
subject matter of any proceedings in a court of law. The reason for this declaration is that in
view of Section 14(3) of the Act, the Council cannot deal with any matter which is sub
judice.
If the Chairman finds that there are no sufficient grounds for inquiry, he may dismiss the
complaint and report it to the Council; otherwise, the Editor of the newspaper or the journalist
concerned is asked to show cause why action should not be taken against him. On receipt of
the written statement and other relevant material from the editor or the journalist, the
Secretariat of the Council places the matter before the Inquiry Committee. The Inquiry
Committee screens and examines the complaint in necessary details. If necessary, it also calls
for further particulars or documents from the parties. The parties are given opportunity to
adduce evidence before the Inquiry Committee by appearing personally or through their
authorised representative including legal practitioners. On the basis of the facts on record and
affidavits or the oral evidence adduced before it, the Committee formulates its findings and
recommendations and forwards them to the Council, which may or may not accept them.
Where the Council is satisfied that a newspaper or news agency has offended against the
standards of journalistic ethics or public taste or that an editor or working journalist has
committed professional misconduct, the Council may warn, admonish or censure the
newspaper, the news agency, the editor or journalist, or disapprove the conduct thereof, as the
case may be . In the complaints lodged by the Press against the authorities, the Council is
empowered to make such observations as it may think fit in respect of the conduct of any
authority including government. The decisions of the Council are final and cannot be
questioned in any court of law. It will thus be seen that the Council wields a lot of moral
authority although it has no legally enforceable punitive powers.
The Inquiry Regulations framed by the Council empower the Chairman to take suo motu
action and issue notices to any party in respect of any matter falling within the scope of Press
Council Act. The procedure for holding a suo motu inquiry is substantially the same as in the
case of a normal inquiry except that for any normal inquiry a complaint is required to be
lodged with the Council by a complainant.13 For the purpose of performing its functions or

13

Satya Ranjan Swain, No Law to Regulatory Regime: The Transition and India's Experience with the Press Council
of India, SSRN, 2011 available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2181794 accessed
20.11.2016.

14
holding an inquiry under the Act the Council exercises some of the powers vested in a Civil
Court trying a suit under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, in respect of the following
matters, namely :-
 Summoning and enforcing the attendance of persons and examining them on oath;
 requiring the discovery and inspection of documents;
 receiving evidence on affidavits;
 requisitioning any public record or copies thereof from any court or office;
 issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses or documents; and
 any other matter, which may be prescribed.

The Council expects the parties to cooperate with it in the conduct of its business. At least in
two cases where the Council noticed that the parties were literally uncooperative or adamant,
it exercised, its authority under Section 15 of the Act to compel them to appear before it
and/or to furnish record etc. In the complaint of some Chandigarh journalists against the
Chief Minister and the Government of Haryana, the erstwhile Council had to warn the
authorities about the use of Council’s coercive powers if they failed to respond to the notices
sent by the Council. Similarly, in the famous case of B G Verghese against The Hindustan
Times, the Birlas were directed to provide complete correspondence exchanged between Shri
Verghese and Shri K K Birla.
The Council, in 1980 had proposed amendment of the Act, for empowering the Council to
recommend to the authorities concerned, denial of certain facilities and concessions in the
form of accreditation, advertisements, allocation of newsprint or concessional rates of
postage for a certain period in the case of a newspaper which was censured thrice by the
Council. Acceptance of the Council’s recommendations on the part of the authorities was
sought to be made obligatory. The Council was further of the view that, as in the case of
newspapers, the power vested in it under Section 15(4) of the Press Council Act, 1978, to
make such observations as it may think fit, in any of its decisions or reports, respecting the
conduct of any authority including government, should expressly include the power to warn,
admonish or censure such authorities and that the observations of the Council in this behalf
should be placed on the Table of both the Houses of Parliament and/or of the Legislature of
the State concerned. In the year 1987, the Council reconsidered the matter and after detailed
deliberations, decided to withdraw its proposal for penal powers because it was of the
reconsidered opinion that in the prevalent conditions these powers could tend to be misused
by the authorities to curb the freedom of the Press.
Since then, time and again, suggestions/references have been made to the Council that it
should have penal powers to punish the delinquent newspapers/journalists. The suggestion
was repeated by the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting in his inaugural
address to the International Conference of Press Councils held in New Delhi in October,
1992, but the Council unanimously rejected.

15
 CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

The first Press Commission has some commendable achievements to its credit. Its report led
to certain significant measures towards regulating the newspaper industry. It was following
the recommendations of the first Press Commission that the Working Journalists Act was
passed and wage boards for the industry were set up. Then the office of the Registrar of
Newspapers was created, and annual reports on the Press in India published. The Press
Council too followed the recommendations of the first Press Commission, and however
unsatisfactory and controversial its functioning was, the fact the Indira Gandhi government
decided to liquidate it through an ordinance during Emergency shows that its role was not
entirely negative.14

 One of the principal recommendations of the first Press Commission — the price page
schedule meant to protect the small newspapers from the fierce competition the bigger ones
presented — was shot down in court and till now no alternative for it has been thought of.
The Commission had recommended diffusion by gradual distribution of shares to employees
and to a small extent to the public. It had also recommended the conversion of the PTI into a
public corporation.

 Some of these recommendations relating to the structure of the industry and the ownership
pattern of the news agencies were flogged to death by the Indian Federation of Working
Journalists. It was all populist rhetoric, with little grasp of the problem. The climax was
reached when Nandini Satpathy, as Indira Gandhi's minister for information and
broadcasting, surreptitiously got a "draft" bill for delinking and diffusion circulated through
certain busybodies among the working journalists; but in the face of severe criticism, she and
her government tried to pretend that they had nothing to do with the document. There was
naturally a great deal of emphasis on 'commitment' and 'social responsibility' of the Press
during Emergency, and the bureaucrats (including police officials who enforced censorship
and managed the Press for Indira Gandhi during Emergency even drafted' a code of conduct
for journalists and tried to get it across in the name of a so-called 'Committee of Editors' to
which the IFWJ was a party.

14
Another press commission, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 49, Issue No. 25, 21 Jun, 2014 available on
http://www.epw.in/journal/2014/25/glimpses-past-web-exclusives/another-press-
commission.html#sthash.sexkKSLQ.dpuf accessed on 20.11.2016.

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REFERENCES

Books

1. Natarajan, S., (1962) : “A History of the Press in India”, New Delhi : Asian Publisher House.

2. “Press, Media and Communication Laws, (Legal Manual)”, (2002) New Delhi : Universal Law
Publishing Co.

3. Rayudu, C.S. and Rao, S.B. Nageswara, (1995) : “Mass Media and Regulation”, Mumbai : Himalaya
Publishing House. Robbertson, G. and Nichol, A., (2002) : “Media Law”, New Delhi : Penguin Book
India Pvt. Ltd.

4. Divan, Madhavi Goradia, (2010) : “Facets of Media Law”, Lucknow : Eastern Book Company.

5. Gour, H.S. (1998) : “Penal Laws of India”, Delhi : Delhi Law House Pvt. Ltd.

6. Joshi, Uma (1999) : “Textbook of Mass Communication and Media”, New Delhi : Anmol
Publications Pvt. Ltd

Websites

http://www.epw.in

http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in

http://www.pib.nic.in

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