New Delhi: The News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) has taken a dim view of anchor Sudhir Chaudhary’s comments on the LGBTQIA+ community in news shows and stated that the community must be treated with dignity.
Activists Indrajeet Ghorpade and Utkarsh Mishra had filed three complaints against three programmes featuring Chaudhary in 2023, at the time when the Supreme Court was hearing and delivering the equal marriage rights case. Two were aired on AajTak and one, on India Today.
In an order on January 27, 2025, the NBDSA said that it found Sudhir Chaudhary’s commentary “violates the dignity of the people to say the least.”
It said they were in violation of NBDSA’s guidelines related to reporting court proceedings, defamatory content and decency.
It ordered Chaudhary to act more maturely and asked Aaj Tak to delete the violating sections from the programmes.
“A well-informed person like the anchor, that too of a national channel, is supposed to respect those rights (of LGBTQI+ persons) which even the law recognises. In this context, it has to be emphasised that even the persons belonging to this community are to be treated as normal human beings and, more importantly, with due dignity,” the NBDSA said.
In the AajTak programme, Chaudhary said that LGBTQ+ marriage is an issue of the western World. An AI-generated image of a person who is half bride and half groom were shown. Chaudhary asked the viewers to imagine their child bringing home a person like this.
He also said that demand for marriage rights is only from specific elite sections of the society.
“Supreme Court ka jo bench hai woh kaafi naye naye logics leke aa raha hai ki kyun ye hamare desh mein hona chahiye (the Supreme Court bench is bringing pretty new logic on why this should happen in our country).”
“Solicitor General ki Supreme Court mein abhi chal nahi rahi hai. Aisa lagta hai Supreme Court mann bana chuka hai ki woh chahta hai aisa (The SG is unable to convince the SC. It’s as if the SC has decided that it wants this).”
Referring to the then Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, he said, “Ye desh kisi ke baap ka nahi hai aur kuch log isse chalane ki koshish kar rahe hai (This country doesn’t belong to anyone’s father and some people are trying to run it as such).”
He also said that during the case hearings, the CJI said to the SG, “Yahan wahi hoga jo mai chahunga (Whatever I want will happen here)”.
“The NBDSA closes this complaint with an advisory to the anchor to show more maturity in future while conducting such programmes. NBDSA further directs the broadcaster to edit the video of the said broadcast by removing the aforesaid portions within 7 days of the Order,” it said.
