At PCI meeting, 4 members agree with govt proposal on rules for nomination of members

The Press Council of India (PCI) today held its meeting where four members agreed with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry's proposal regarding amendments in the rules for the nomination of its members, PCI Chairman Justice (retd) C K Prasad said.

Four members Vinay P Sahasrabuddhe, Swapan Dasgupta, Sushma Yadav and K Sreenivasarao "agreed with the ministry's proposals, he said.

On March 21, the ministry had noted that the process of selection of association/bodies for recognition required to be rationalised and proposed insertion of two provisions in the Press Council (Procedure for Nomination of Members) Rules 1978, a PCI official said.

While one was related to eligibility of associations, the other was regarding the scrutiny of their claims, the official added.

The members also agreed for uploading all important decisions in the PCI website while adjudication of complains related to journalists were deferred for the next meeting to be held on May 2, Prasad said.

The meeting did not require the provision of quorum for convening as it was an adjourned meeting, he said.

On April 11, the PCI deferred its meeting for today due to lack of quorum with only four members attending the meet.

The quorum to convene the meeting is 11 members, including the chairman, Prasad had said.

On April 9, eight prominent media bodies had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to defer the April 11 meeting of the "truncated" Council, alleging that the PCI chairman has adopted "arbitrary" procedure to reconstitute it.

Prasad, however, had refuted the allegations.

On March 16, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had notified the names of eight nominated members of the reconstituted PCI.

The PCI, a statutory body with a mandate to act as a watchdog to oversee conduct of the print media, was earlier reconstituted for three years in October 2014. It term has ended in October last year.

Prasad had said the Council submitted names of other members of the revamped PCI to the ministry, which will decide on its notification. Out of 20 remaining names to be notified, he had said, the government could notify 19 names, leaving one name as the matter was in a court.

The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has moved the Delhi High Court on PCI's rejection of its nominee after which the court has stayed the Council's decision.