Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The Delhi High Court stayed an order of CAT quashing appointments of 25 anchors and reporters in Doordarshan News channel and sought responses from the Centre and public broadcaster Prasar Bharati on the issue.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna issued notices to the Centre and Prasar Bharati and sought their replies by May 10,the next date of hearing.
The court’s order came on a batch of petitions filed by the anchors and the reporters whose appointments by the Prasar Bharti were annulled by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in September,last year.
The CAT,in its order,had quashed the appointments of 25 news anchors and the reporters posted with the Delhi Doordarshan News,saying Prasar Bharati had committed ‘irregularities’ in favouring some candidates including a daughter of a Union Minister.
Although the appeals were filed soon after the CAT’s order was pronounced,but the High Court had deferred the hearing after the scribes submitted that they had filed the review petitions before the panel itself.
The High Court commenced the hearing after it was intimated that the panel had dismissed their (scribes’) review petitions on February 11.
The tribunal,deciding the petition of journalist Harikesh Bahadur Singh who was then working with the channel,had found that rules for appointment were changed arbitrarily at the last moment at the interview stage to favour some candidates who did not perform well in the written test.
The CAT had noted that the number of journalists to be called for interview had been increased from 30 to 35 to accommodate Yashvi Tirath (daughter of Union Minister Krishna Tirath) who ranked 33 in the written exam.
Singh had alleged that the recruitment process in Prasar Bharati was not fair and candidates were selected on the basis of political considerations.
