Govt reconstitutes PCI

The government has reconstituted the Press Council of India (PCI) for a three year term but the names under medium newspaper category have not been announced as the matter related to it is sub-judice.

According to a gazette notification, members of the newly reconstituted body under the category of Working Journalists-Editors' are Chandramani Raghuvanshi, Uttam Chandra Sharma, Pradeep Kumar Jain, Om Prakash Khemkarni, Sayed Razza Husain Rizvi and Baldev Raj Gupta.

In the category of Working journalists-Other than Editors', the nominated membere are Amar Devulapalli, Balwinder Singh Jammu, Sarat Chandra Behera, Pravat Kumar Dash, M A Majid, Kamal Nain Narang and Chhayakanta Nayak.

Sharma, Dash and Nayak were nominated for the second term in the revamped PCI, the notification said.

Vijay Kumar Chopra and Rakesh Sharma have been nominated from Big newspapers category', while Shayam Singh Panwar and Keshav Dutt Chandola from the 'Small newspapers category'.

Ashok Upadhyay, editor of United News of India (UNI), has been nominated in the category of persons who manage news agencies.

However, the names of two members from the category of medium newspapers have not been announced as the matter is sub-judice, a PCI official said.

Earlier, the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) had moved the Delhi High Court against PCI's decision to reject the nomination of Hormusji N Cama, owner of Mumbai Samachar weekly and a member of the INS, in the category of medium newspapers. The court had stayed the council's decision.

The INS had accused the PCI chief of "biased" selection of new members. The claims were, however, rejected by the media watchdog, which said, laid down rules were followed in the process of induction of new members.

On March 16, the government had notified the names of eight nominated members of the reconstituted council. Parliamentarians nominated to the new body were Meenakshi Lekhi, T G Venkatesh Babu, Prathap Simha, Vinay P Sahasrabuddhe and Swapan Dasgupta.

Members nominated to PCI from different organisations were Sushma Yadav from University Grants Commission (UGC), Manan Kumar Mishra from Bar Council of India and K Sreenivasarao from Sahitya Akademi.

Lekhi and Sreenivasarao were nominated for the second term.

On May 22, former Supreme Court judge C K Prasad was appointed the chairman of the PCI for a second term. He had headed the media watchdog for three years from November 2014.

According to the Press Council Act, the council shall consist of a chairman and 28 other members.

The Press Council of India is a statutory body with a mandate to act as a watchdog to oversee the conduct of the print media. It was reconstituted for three years in October, 2014 and its term ended in October last year.