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BJP's Prasar Bharati Bill has two new provisions

The legislation for reviving the Prasar Bharati Bill as passed in 1990 has two new provisos, that provide for the resignation of the present chief executive officer and part-time members, when it gets Presidential assent.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj said these provisions were necessary to enable the revival of the act as passed in 1990, and to appoint a new board for Prasar Bharati.

The minister said legal experts had stated that certain steps of an enduring nature taken under an ordinance did not cease with the lapse of the ordinance, and therefore these provisos to Sections 6(2) and 6(3) had become necessary. The proviso relating to the chief executive officer says he will have to quit office when the legislation gets Presidential assent, and that he will not be entitled to any compensation.

However, legal experts have opined that the presence of these provisos in the bill should have been mentioned in the statement of objects and reasons appended to the bill, which says the purpose of the bill restores the original bill in toto. The experts have also pointed out that the amendment bill had a financial memorandum contrary to normal practice for such bills, and this has been done to classify the bill as a money bill and thus make its passage in Parliament easier.

Referring to the revival of the 22-member committee, Swaraj also denied the charge that Prasar Bharati was the only autonomous undertaking to have a parliamentary committee to oversee it. She said all autonomous undertakings came under the Committee on Public Undertakings of the Lok Sabha, but it had been felt during the discussion on the original bill in 1990 that the Prasar Bharati could not be clubbed with other undertakings as it dealt with artistic and not financial matters. The aim is to have autonomy with accountability to Parliament and not government, she added.

Denying that the only aim of the legislation was to remove the present CEO, S S Gill, she said the provision relating to the fixation of maximum age for the chief executive officer was not comparable to the appointment of the chairman of the Press Council of India, the head of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or the principal secretary since no age limit had been defined in the original legislation for those posts.

Meanwhile, she said the government did not want any vacuum in the Prasar Bharati and the process for a successor for the CEO would begin as soon as the legislation is passed and gets Presidential assent. The selection committee to find a CEO comprises the vice president of India, the Press Council of India chairman, and a nominee of the President.

She denied the allegation that with the Presidential nominee being in effect the nominee of the government, and that the ending of the term of PCI chairman Justice P B Sawant in July will mean that the government will be able to place its own representative as CEO. She said the vice president being chairman of the committee will ensure impartiality in selection.

The Prasar Bharati Act, introduced in the Rajya Sabha by then information and broadcasting minister P Upendra in December 1989, was passed in mid-1990 after a national debate. It received Presidential assent on September 12 the same year, but was notified seven years later with effect from September 15 by then I&B minister S Jaipal Reddy. The legislation was amended on October 30 through an ordinance aimed at bringing in greater autonomy, and was re-promulgated in late December after Parliament was dissolved. The BJP-led government allowed the ordinance to lapse on May 6.

UNI

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