Expanding powers

The registration Bill is as draconian as the old one

The Press and Registration of Periodicals Bill, 2023, which was passed by voice vote in the Rajya Sabha last week, marked a much-awaited repeal of the Press and Registration of Books, 1867. The principal purpose of the British-era law, passed in the aftermath of the 1857 mutiny, was censorship, and it was rightly believed to be out of step with the demands of an evolving democracy such as India. Surprisingly, despite attempts to amend it, as recently as 2011, the Act continued in the statute books till the third decade of the 21st century. There are some useful changes in the Bill, such as simplifying the registration process, excluding scientific and academic journals from its purview, and decriminalising the offence of filing improper information. But the overarching intent of the law, which covers news publications, does not appear to have changed significantly from the 156-year-old statute it seeks to replace.

At the heart of the problem are the excessive powers accorded to a regulator, the press registrar general, who will be appointed by the government. The principal hazards for the print media industry lie in Sections 4(1) and 11(4) of the Bill. Both Sections give the registrar general the right to withhold permission or cancel the certificate of registration for any owner or publisher convicted by a court for being involved in “terrorist or unlawful activity” or “having done anything against the security of the State”. Helpfully, both Sections specify that the meanings of the terms “terrorist act” and “unlawful activities” are defined under specific clauses under the notorious Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, or UAPA. A perusal of the relevant UAPA Sections suggests that both terms are worded in a manner that can be defined as broadly or narrowly as the authorities choose. The scope for ambiguity makes it possible for any news publication to have its registration cancelled if the registrar general deems that it has disclaimed, questioned, disrupted, or intended to disrupt the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India, or which causes, or is intended to cause, disaffection against India. The alacrity with which this draconian statute has been arbitrarily applied to incarcerate or silence all manner of critics of the state, including journalists, raises further concern about the durability of such precarious press freedoms that currently exist.

Also concerning is the fact that the registrar general can enter premises to verify information, a holdover from the old law. The Bill also allows the registrar general to appoint other agencies to monitor a publication’s functions. It stipulates that such an appointment is limited to a “gazetted officer”, a definition that does not inspire confidence since it could cover officers from security and law-enforcement agencies. This threat is magnified by the fact that the Bill also arrogates to the government the right to frame rules under which news publishing can be done, which appears to align it with the government’s “fact-checking unit” set up under the Information Technology Rules of 2021 with wide powers to order content to be taken down. All told, it would be advisable for the government to refer the Bill to a committee for deeper deliberations before the Lok Sabha passes it, given the absence of debate in Parliament. In its current form, it cannot be described as an exemplar of Indian democracy in practice.