The Editors Guild of India has written to the head of the Press Information Bureau (PIB), urging him to withdraw the new accreditation guidelines introduced by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on February 7. The Guild said many provisions to withdraw the accreditation of a journalist were “arbitrary and without any due process of law”. “We are surprised that the new guidelines have been issued without any consultations with press organisations and media bodies. As a result, the guidelines fail to offer clarity and streamlining, and instead impose unilateral, onerous and arbitrary conditions upon journalists. Under the guidelines, journalists will come under the thumb of the police, and this will have a chilling impact on reporting and weaken the independence of the press media,” it said in the letter. Written to PIB’s Principal Director General Jaideep Bhatnagar, the letter stated that the new guidelines “introduce grounds for suspension/withdrawal of accreditation” if a journalist has acted in a manner prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of State, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence. “This is arbitrary and violates due process of the law for the following reasons: (i) it does not provide for an adjudicating authority to decide on suspension, (ii) lacks procedural safeguards of right of hearing, recording of reasons, provision of appeal, etc.; and (iii) is a disproportionate and uncalled for punishment for actions that already have existing remedies in law.” It added that any decision “made under the said sub-clause violates the principle of separation of powers” and will “impair the exercise of fundamental rights for journalists.” It said, “this signals an intent to crush dissent, and only provide accreditation to pliant and pro-government journalists”. It also pointed out that the guidelines “do not provide any remedy or right of appeal for journalists whose accreditation has been rejected”. On February 11, five media bodies had written to Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur regarding the same.
