The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has refused to provide details of the status of the Broadcasting Service (Regulation) Bill, including a copy of the bill that was circulated to select stakeholders in July 2024, the list of persons with whom it was shared, responses received through the Right to Information (RTI) have revealed.
Transparency activist Anjali Bhardwaj, through an RTI, had sought to know a list of names of all stakeholders with whom the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill was shared in July 2024, a copy of the text of the bill, and records authorising the sharing of the bill.
In its response, the MIB has said that the draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill was “placed in the public domain on 10.11.2023 along with explanatory notes for comments of the stakeholders and the general public, which is available at this Ministry’s website www.mib.gov.in. In response, multiple recommendations/ comments/ suggestions were received including from various Associations.”
Ministry response silent on current status, refers to old statement
The ministry response stated that certain parts of the draft bill was updated subsequently and a fresh draft will only be published after detailed consultation.
“Series of consultations were held with the stakeholders on the draft Bill subsequently and based upon the deliberations therein, certain parts of the Bill were updated and shared with certain participants for comments. However, it has been decided to provide additional time till 15.10.2024 to solicit comments/ suggestions on the draft Bill placed in public domain on 10.11.2023 itself and that a fresh draft will be published after detailed consultations,” it said.
It added that the bill is at the drafting stage and referred to a statement on X (formerly Twitter) put out by the ministry in August.
The old draft version the Ministry referred to had all draconian features of a fully controlled media environment and a bid to push digital media into government and executive control. Right to Information or RTI applications had at least partially revealed the negative feedback that MIB had got after the first draft was circulated.
In its response to the RTI request seeking a copy of the bill and the names of the stakeholders to whom it was circulated, the ministry has refused to provide it by citing t Section B(l)(d) of the Right to Information Act 2005.
“It is informed that Section 8(l)(d) of the Right to Information Act 2005 provides that notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information and Section 8(l)(e) of the Act provides that notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information. Given the above position, the information requested in the RTI application is denied,” it said.
In a statement, Bhardwaj said that the ministry has invoked the exemption “without demonstrating how the disclosure would ‘harm the competitive position of a third party’ and which is the third party whose interests would be harmed.”
‘Selective sharing of a version of the bill raises serious questions’
“The secrecy in the deliberation and consultative process is alarming given the far-reaching consequences of the bill. The selective sharing of a version of the bill raises serious questions about the consultative process,” Bhardwaj’s statement said.
“The Ministry has not provided any specific response to the queries on whether the 2023 or 2024 versions of the Broadcasting Bill have been withdrawn. No specific exemption clause has been cited to deny the information sought. As a result, there is no clarity on the status of the Broadcasting bill,” the statement added.
“This violates peoples’ right to information and erodes public trust in the law-making process. The failure to furnish requisite information will be challenged in the appeal process under the RTI Act.”
The ministry’s statement on X in August came after about 14 copies of watermarked versions of a variation of the December draft to select ‘stakeholders’ was put out in July.
Once news got out on August 12, that the government has also asked for a return of the physical copies of the second draft it had put out, critics of the bill saw it as the Modi government putting the bill on ice.
The draft bill had evoked criticism for looking to bring all news and news-adjacent content online – text, podcasts, audio, video – under its sole regulatory oversight. In December 2023, the Internet Freedom Foundation had written that: “By expanding the restrictive regulations currently applied to cable tv and radio, to “Over-the-Top” (“OTT”) content & digital news published by individuals/ companies, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (“MIB”) is allowing for executive control over online free speech and artistic content.”