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Tag: Vikramajit Sen

  • Broadcasting Content Council gets new chairman – ex-SC judge Vikramjit Sen

    NEW DELHI: Former Supreme Court Judge Justice Vikramajit Sen has been appointed the new Chairperson of Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC), the independent self-regulatory body set up by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation in June 2011 to examine content-related complaints relating to all non-news general entertainment channels in India.

    Justice Sen succeeds former Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice, Justice Mukul Mudgal, whose three-year term as BCCC Chairperson has come to an end. The Board of Directors of IBF announced the appointment.

    A delegation of the IBF Board, led by the Foundation President. Punit Goenka, and comprising its Directors Aroon Purie, Rajat Sharma, Uday Shankar and I. Venkat, met Justice Sen and invited him to chair the BCCC for the next three years.

    Justice Sen, an alumnus of St. Xavier’s School (Delhi) and St. Stephen’s College (Delhi), earned his degree in Law from Faculty of Law, Delhi University. After a long tenure as a Judge of the Delhi High Court, he was appointed Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court and elevated as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India in 2012, an office he served till December 2015.

    In his farewell message, Justice Mudgal thanked all members of BCCC and the IBF Board. “Your presence and constant support greatly helped me perform my duties at BCCC. It is very encouraging that over the years, BCCC has evolved into a robust and credible self-regulatory mechanism of global standards,” he said.

    In his acceptance message, Justice Sen said, “I am looking forward to this exciting assignment. Independence of the media is extremely important and equally important is the responsibility that comes along with it.”

    In his welcome message to the new BCCC Chairperson, Goenka said, “Our Board is confident that Justice Sen’s presence will stimulate the process of adjudicating complaints received from various stakeholders, including the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, and take forward the process of transparent and impartial decision-making.”

    In its six-year-long journey, BCCC, which is a 13-member body, has handled more than 40,000 content-related complaints. The Council’s 67th meeting, under the stewardship of its new Chairperson Justice Vikramajit Sen, will be held in August.

    Former Chief Justice of Madras and Delhi high courts and former Chairperson of Law Commission of India, Justice A.P. Shah, was the founding Chairperson of BCCC.

  • HC refuses stay on sports telecast ordinance

    HC refuses stay on sports telecast ordinance

    NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today refused to stay the operation of the ordinance asking private sports channels to share live feed of cricket and other sports events with public broadcaster Prasar Bharti.

    A division bench headed by Justice Vikramajit Sen adjourned the matter till 15 February for further hearing.

    Senior Counsel Dushyant Dave, appearing for Prasar Bharati, pleaded that the ordinance could only be stayed under extraordinary grounds.

    In any case, he argued, the conditions to share the live feed with the Prasar Bharati was part of the tender documents, and very much known to Nimbus Communications.

    The reply filed by the Government to the petition by Nimbus challenging the Sports Broadcasting (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharti) Ordinance 2007 said it had been made clear to the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) that any party getting the rights to telecast the matches would have to share the live feed with Doordarshan and All India Radio, the application filed by the government in reply to the private channel contended.

    Additional solicitor general PP Malhotra, appearing for the government, said the petition should be dismissed as it was not the fundamental right of Nimbus, who own Neo Sports channel to monopolise the telecast of cricket matches. In any case, Nimbus should abide by the contract it had signed in February 2006 to share the live feed.

    Terming it as “bad in law”, the petition had said, “The ordinance transgresses the constitutional limits and apart from violating the petitioner’s fundamental rights, it also interferes with the power of the court to review the circular enforcing the private channels to share the feed.”

    On 23 January, in an interim order, the court had allowed Prasar Bharati to download the feed of Nimbus Communications and telecast the India-West Indies ODI series in a delayed transmission of seven minutes on DD and broadcast commentary live on AIR.

    The High Court has decided to merge the hearing of the appeal by Prasar Bharati against this order, and the petition by Nimbus challenging the Ordinance.