ITV

Tag: Mainur Reza Chowdhury

  • Bangladesh’s Ekushey Television off air as of Thursday

    Bangladesh’s Ekushey Television off air as of Thursday

    MUMBAI: Ekushey Television (ETV), Bangladesh’s first private terrestrial television channel, went off air on Thursday. The ETV’s terrestrial broadcast was shut down by the government at 5:00 pm after the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld a High Court Division verdict declaring the license of the ETV illegal.

    At 10:50 pm, ETV went off air following a formal announcement, Bangladesh’s Daily Star has reported . However, it is contemplating filing a writ against the government’s stopping the telecast.

    The Appellate Division yesterday dismissed the review petitions filed by the ETV and the ETV chairman and the foreign investors. A seven-member full court of the Appellate Division chaired by Chief Justice Mainur Reza Chowdhury delivered the judgement at 11:35 am, according to the Star.

    On 27 March, the High Court declared the ETV’s licensing agreement illegal following a writ petition made by individuals supporting the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party that the station did not win its license fairly during the regime of the earlier government. On 2 July, the Appellate Division rejected a leave to appeal petition by the ETV, upholding the High Court verdict that the ETV license was illegal. However, the court stayed the verdict for five weeks and then for three more weeks leaving the scope to file a review petition.

    Three years ago, the channel commenced broadcast as both a terrestrial and a satellite channel. In 2000, a petition was filed against it by members sympathetic to the governing coalition led by the BNP. It questioned the manner in which ETV topped the list of parties when international bids were invited for setting up a private television channel in the country in 1998.

    Lawyers for the station, which is backed by the American banking firm Citicorp, had argued that if the licensing process is found to be defective, it could be replaced by another. Citicorp has invested over 100 million Tk in the venture

  • Bangladesh’s Ekushey Television off air as of Thursday

    Bangladesh’s Ekushey Television off air as of Thursday

    MUMBAI: Ekushey Television (ETV), Bangladesh’s first private terrestrial television channel, went off air on Thursday. The ETV’s terrestrial broadcast was shut down by the government at 5:00 pm after the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld a High Court Division verdict declaring the license of the ETV illegal.

    At 10:50 pm, ETV went off air following a formal announcement, Bangladesh’s Daily Star has reported . However, it is contemplating filing a writ against the government’s stopping the telecast.

    The Appellate Division yesterday dismissed the review petitions filed by the ETV and the ETV chairman and the foreign investors. A seven-member full court of the Appellate Division chaired by Chief Justice Mainur Reza Chowdhury delivered the judgement at 11:35 am, according to the Star.

    On 27 March, the High Court declared the ETV’s licensing agreement illegal following a writ petition made by individuals supporting the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party that the station did not win its license fairly during the regime of the earlier government. On 2 July, the Appellate Division rejected a leave to appeal petition by the ETV, upholding the High Court verdict that the ETV license was illegal. However, the court stayed the verdict for five weeks and then for three more weeks leaving the scope to file a review petition.

    Three years ago, the channel commenced broadcast as both a terrestrial and a satellite channel. In 2000, a petition was filed against it by members sympathetic to the governing coalition led by the BNP. It questioned the manner in which ETV topped the list of parties when international bids were invited for setting up a private television channel in the country in 1998.

    Lawyers for the station, which is backed by the American banking firm Citicorp, had argued that if the licensing process is found to be defective, it could be replaced by another. Citicorp has invested over 100 million Tk in the venture.

  • Bangladesh’s Ekushey Television off air as of Thursday

    MUMBAI: Ekushey Television (ETV), Bangladesh’s first private terrestrial television channel, went off air on Thursday. The ETV’s terrestrial broadcast was shut down by the government at 5:00 pm after the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld a High Court Division verdict declaring the license of the ETV illegal.

    At 10:50 pm, ETV went off air following a formal announcement, Bangladesh’s Daily Star has reported . However, it is contemplating filing a writ against the government’s stopping the telecast.

    The Appellate Division yesterday dismissed the review petitions filed by the ETV and the ETV chairman and the foreign investors. A seven-member full court of the Appellate Division chaired by Chief Justice Mainur Reza Chowdhury delivered the judgement at 11:35 am, according to the Star.

    On 27 March, the High Court declared the ETV’s licensing agreement illegal following a writ petition made by individuals supporting the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party that the station did not win its license fairly during the regime of the earlier government. On 2 July, the Appellate Division rejected a leave to appeal petition by the ETV, upholding the High Court verdict that the ETV license was illegal. However, the court stayed the verdict for five weeks and then for three more weeks leaving the scope to file a review petition.

    Three years ago, the channel commenced broadcast as both a terrestrial and a satellite channel. In 2000, a petition was filed against it by members sympathetic to the governing coalition led by the BNP. It questioned the manner in which ETV topped the list of parties when international bids were invited for setting up a private television channel in the country in 1998.

    Lawyers for the station, which is backed by the American banking firm Citicorp, had argued that if the licensing process is found to be defective, it could be replaced by another. Citicorp has invested over 100 million Tk in the venture.

  • Bangla channel ETV gets some respite as review petition set for 24 August

    Bangla channel ETV gets some respite as review petition set for 24 August

    MUMBAI: ETV, Bangladesh’s first private terrestrial television channel, which is under threat of closure from the authorities, has again managed to get some breathing time from the country’s apex appeals court. 

    The Appellate Division, headed by Chief Justice Mainur Reza Chowdhury, in its order issued yesterday, decreed that it could to continue broadcast till 24 August, the new date set for disposal of a review petition, Bangladesh’s The Independent, reported today.

    According to The Independent, the Appellate Division had earlier stayed its own order of upholding the verdict of a High Court Division Bench that declared the agreement between ETV and the government without any lawful authority and allowed the ETV’s prayer for filing a review petition and also allowed five weeks to do so. 

    The court accepted ETV’s plea that it could not file the review petition as it “did not get the certified copy of the court’s order.”

    The High Court had earlier found irregularities in the existing agreement between ETV and the government and held that the granting of licence to ETV was done without any lawful authority. The Appellate Division on 2 July allowed ETV five weeks to file a review petition against its (court) order.

    If the Appellate Division finally does uphold the verdict of the High Court, ETV would have to shut down its telecasts till issuance of a fresh licence by the government. 

    The writ petition against the ETV was filed by two Dhaka University teachers and the president of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) Gias Kamal Chowdhury, on 19 September, 2001 challenging the legality of the ETV-government agreement. 

    ETV was launched on the basis of an agreement signed between the Ministry of Information and AS Mahmud, Chairman of the company, on March 9, 1999.