Sponsored TV news, headlines illegal: HC
Declaring the sponsoring of TV news and headlines illegal, the High Court yesterday directed that broadcast of news and headlines sponsored by different organisations cannot continue after August 31 this year.
Delivering a verdict on a writ petition, the court observed that sponsored TV news and headlines may not be unbiased, and therefore, people’s right to information will be denied.
Sponsoring news and headlines is against the spirit of the constitution’s articles 31 and 39, Barrister Masud Ahmed Sayeed, lawyer for the writ petitioner, told The Daily Star.
He also said TV channels can continue running sponsored news and headlines until August 31, following the HC verdict.
Details of the observations and grounds on which the HC delivered the verdict could not be known immediately as the full text was not released yesterday.
The HC bench of Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury and Justice Sashanka Shekhar Sarkar came up with the verdict following a writ petition filed by MA Matin, a retired teacher of Government Laboratory High School, challenging the legality of sponsored news and headlines on TV.
Matin filed the writ petition with the HC in October 2011, saying that most TV channels never run news that go against the interests of organisations or persons paying them to air advertisements. People’s right to information is thus denied, the petition added.
Following the petition, HC bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik and Justice Md Nuruzzaman had issued a rule asking the authorities concerned to explain why broadcasting news and headlines -- sponsored by different organisations -- on TV channels should not be declared illegal.
Secretaries to the ministries of information, law and home, inspector general of police, director general of Bangladesh Television and chief executives of private TV channels had been made respondents to the rule.
BTV, Independent TV and Channel 24 placed replies to the HC, saying that they do not run sponsored news and headlines.
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