The Supreme Court will on Friday hear two petitions challenging the ban on the BBC documentary on Narendra Modi — India: The Modi Question. A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and MM Sundresh will take up the petitions which were mentioned for an urgent listing before CJI DY Chandrachud on January 30.
On Monday, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, senior journalist N Ram and advocate Prashant Bhushan approached the Supreme Court seeking direction to restrain the central government from censoring the BBC documentary. Centre’s decision to block the documentary is “manifestly arbitrary”, and “unconstitutional”, the petition filed by advocate ML Sharma said. Even if the contents of the documentary and its viewership/discussion thereupon are unpalatable to the powers that be, it is no ground to curtail the freedom of speech and expression of the petitioners, the plea said.
The documentary became an issue of internal and external politics as the external affairs ministry dismissed the documentary as a propaganda piece. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak distanced himself from the row and the UK government too asserted that UK is investing heavily in relastionship with India and what BBC documentary claims is its independent output.
