The Kerala High Court endorses the Centre's decision to prevent the MediaOne news channel from being broadcast

The Kerala High Court upheld the Centre's order to prevent Malayalam news channel MediaOne from airing on television on Tuesday.

Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd, which owns MediaOne, filed a petition challenging the central government's January 31 decision, which was dismissed by Justice N Nagaresh.

The Ministry of Home Affairs' decision to withhold security clearance, according to the court, was based on intelligence inputs from several agencies.

During Monday's arguments, the Centre argued that once a security clearance is granted, it cannot be renewed indefinitely.

The central government had previously told the court that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had rejected security clearance to MediaOne based on intelligence inputs, citing national security concerns.

The channel, on the other hand, claimed that MHA clearance was only required when applying for a new permission/license, not when renewing an existing one.

It further claimed that, according to the uplinking and downlinking rules, security clearance was only necessary when applying for a new licence, not when renewing an existing one.

This was not the first time the channel's operations have been hampered.

MediaOne was briefly suspended for 48 hours, along with another Malayalam news channel, Asianet, for their coverage of communal violence in Delhi in 2020, with official orders stating that they covered the violence in a way that "highlighted the attack on places of worship and siding towards a particular community." PTI\sROH