Delhi High Court Issues Notice Seeking Response From Central Government on Plea Demanding Government Take Over of BARC
(Judicial Quest News Network)
In response to a plea, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to Central government and Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) calling for a government take over of the body that controls the statistics on television audience measurtement.
The PIL filed by a trust named Veterans Forum for Transparency in Public Life, through Advocates Rabin Majumdar, Akansha Srivastava and Joydeep Mukherjee.
The petitioners seeks strict compliance and implementation of Act 11 of 2016 in terms of its preamble which reads as “ An act to provide for the establishment of a National Standaards body for the harmonious development of the activities of standardisation,conformity assessment and quality auurance of goods articles, processes, systems and services and for matters concerned therwith or incidental thereto”.in respect of the Television Audience Measurement Services.
It is further submitted that private bodies have devised their own arbitrary, unscientific, untested and illegalstandards which are devoid of peer review.Coupled with unfettered power in guise of autonomy, these private bodies have created parallel system of standard setting.
A Division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma band Justice Subramonium Prasad called for replies from the Union Ministers od Information and Broadcasting (MIB), MinistryElectronics and Information Technology (MEITY), Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs as well as the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
The petitioners argued that at present, these functions are being carried out by an array of bodies leading to “chaos, convulsion and corruption”. This was affecting the public and viewers at large.
In its earlier order the court had directed to the Central governmentto decide the same as per rep[resentation.It was informes to the court the government has not taken any action or initiated any positive move in this regard.
