Ordinance Likely This Week To Amend Prasar Bharati Act
The government is contemplating promulgating an ordinance this week to bring about certain amendments in the Prasar Bharati Act which would restore the act to its original form, including putting an age bar of 62 years on the DD and AIR chief executive's post and bringing about a 22-MP panel to oversee the activities of the Prasar Bharati.
According to government sources, the two information and broadacsting ministers, Sushma Swaraj and M.A. Naqvi, reportedly, met the President on Saturday. "If an ordinance has to be promulgated then it is likely to be done on or before August 13 after which Swaraj would be out of delhi for quite sometime," the sources said.
But backed with legal opinions, Prasar Bharati's lone permanent member and chief executive of DD and AIR, SS Gill, has vowed to "fight to the finish." He reiterated on Sunday, "I will challenge the government's move to promulgate an ordinance which is solely aimed at removing me," a confident-sounding Gill said.
On Friday, Gill had told press persons that the actions of Sushma Swaraj (regarding distribution of extracts from Gill's books, including `Dynasty') does not behove that of a union minister. Legal experts opine that Gill may get a stay from courts if an ordinance is promulagted now.
The government's dilemma is on two counts. Firstly, the case of Prasar Bharati has got hyped so much that every action of the government, good or bad, is seen as a malafide action. Secondly, there are doubts in certain quarters of the government whether a text-book President like K.R. Narayanan would be convinced of the "immediacy" of an ordinance ragrding Prasar Bharati Act, which was passed by the Lok Sabha, but could not get introduced in the Rajya sabha amidst controversies.
In the last few days I&B ministry officials had met their counterparts in the law ministry and that an ordinance "is in the offing, but the President has to be convinced before it", sources said.
Article 123, relating to the powers of the President to promulgate ordinances during recess of Parliament, states: "If any time, except when both Houses of parliament are in session, the President is satisfied that circumstances exist which render it necessary for him to take immediate action, he may promulgate such ordinances as the circumstances appear to him to require."