India: Is The 15th Press Council Collapsing? – OpEd
Not to speak of a fully functioning government-sponsored media watchdog in the largest democracy on Earth, but the Press Council of India (PCI), which remains inactive for a full year, is on the verge of collapse.
The quasi-judicial body, which was initiated to safeguard and nurture the freedom of press in India, continues to be non-functioning since 5 October 2024 (the date of expiry of PCI's 14th Council). Since then various initiatives to constitute the statutory 15th council to carry forward its prescribed activities confronted different hurdles. Currently the PCI has its chairperson (Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai) and secretary (Shubha Gupta) along with five functioning members namely Rajya Sabha lawmakers Sudhanshu Trivedi and Brij Lal, Ashwini K Mohapatra (University Grants Commission), Manan Kumar Mishra (Bar Council of India) and K Sreenivasarao (Sahitya Akademi), who all assumed charges on 20 December 2024 with a three-year term.
Months back, Union information & broadcasting minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed that Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla had nominated three members (Sambit Patra, Naresh Mhaske and Kali Charan Munda) for the 15th council. The 28-member PCI should have 13 individuals representing the professional journalists out of whom 6 need to be editors of newspapers and 7 working journalists.
More serious crisis looms over as the full term of PCI chairperson Justice Desai along with a six-month extension (who took charge on 17 June 2022) is expiring on 16 December 2025. So within the next two working days, the PCI chairman's tenure must be extended again or reappoint someone (the official website https://presscouncil.nic.in/ maintains silence and queries over the developments by this writer was recently ignored). Otherwise, there will be a constitutional crisis if the PCI, which is an autonomous body initially set up in 1966 under the Press Council Act 1965, becomes headless.
A question that arises is who would take care of the print media fraternity (covering the Registrar of Newspapers for India-endorsed 100,000 publications in various frequencies and languages? The billion plus nation also supports nearly 400 satellite news channels along with hundreds of thousands of portals, whatsapp channels and other digital outlets. However the PCI can only overview the functioning of newspapers, periodicals and news agencies only. All other news outlets remain out of its purview.
Moreover, the PCI has limited power to enforce its guidelines by penalizing print outlets as well their editors and working journalists for the violation. The PCI can receive complaints against a particular newspaper/news agency or an editor/working journalist against their professional misconduct deteriorating the standard of journalistic behaviours for adjudications. More importantly, it enjoys the authority to make observations if the conduct of any government is found inappropriate while ensuring freedom of the press. So the demand to bring all the news channels, radio and digital platforms under the PCI's jurisdiction continues.
The present crisis started as many all India journo-bodies opposed a change in the PCI rules to pick up members from various press clubs instead of the national union of working journalists. Some of them even approached the court making the situation more complex. They argue that the press clubs are basically recreational bodies and their coverage areas normally stick to a particular region, city or town. O
ften the press clubs offer memberships to non-working journalists (like academicians, writers, film personalities and also diplomats) to enhance their influences, and hence their members may not do justice to the professional media personnel in various crucial junctures. More precisely the press club/press guild/media club cannot have an all India body (nonetheless the nomenclature Press Club of India) with representatives from various parts of the vast country. On the other hand, they argued that recognized journalist-unions usually comprise members from different parts of India.