The Centre cannot deny citizens the grounds for refusing security clearance howsoever serious the grounds for it may be, the Supreme Court has said. “Even offenders who face criminal charges of national implications are supplied the charge sheet, however serious the concern of national security may be. Here, they are not offenders. You cannot merely say that security clearance is denied to you and tell them we won’t disclose anything about it,” a bench of justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and Hima Kohli said on Wednesday over the Centre’s refusal to disclose grounds for denying security clearance to Kerala’s Media One channel.
The court was hearing Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited’s (MBL) appeal for disclosure of the grounds. MBL runs the Media One Malayalam current affairs channel. The Union home ministry cited a breach of national security while denying the channel security clearance. The denial subsequently led to a blanket withdrawal of its uplinking and downlinking licenses.
The Kerala high court on March 2 upheld the Centre’s denial of clearance. But the top court on March 15 stayed the revocation of security clearance and the ban on the channel was lifted till further orders.
Additional solicitor general KM Nataraj, appearing for the Centre, told the top court on Wednesday it was willing to disclose the reasons to the court in a sealed cover but not to the channel owners.
But the bench said the essence of court proceedings is that what is shown by one party is disclosed to the other party. “Question is whether we can do it without them [petitioner] seeing it.”
The channel’s lawyer, senior advocate Dushyant Dave, argued the moment the judges see a sealed cover and national security written on it, they are put on guard because national security is a catchphrase. “There is a serious fundamental problem…a sealed cover… does it not create a bias in the mind of a judge.”
The bench gave the Centre a day to prepare its response. “Here you are denying security clearance by saying your directors have nefarious links or that the ownership of the channel is in the hands of a hostile country. You may redact the source of your information but can you decline the information on which you have arrived at this conclusion. What is the remedy available to citizens in such cases as MHA [ministry of home affairs] that denies security clearance is a third party?”
It added that even while issuing orders detaining persons under the National Security Act, the grounds of detention are indicated. “Here they are seeking renewal of their uplinking license after 10 years.”
The bench said in 10 years, the channel has put a certain amount of investment. “It has employees and there is a certain degree of the reputation of the channel. The threshold to deny them clearance has to be higher.”
The court noted a show cause notice was issued to Media One in 2016 but it was dropped and the channel’s downlinking permission was renewed.
The Media One channel got security clearance in February 2011 following which it obtained a license to operate the channel in September 2011. This permission was renewed after 10 years.
On January 5 this year, the channel was served with a show cause notice for revoking the permission on the grounds of “national security and public order”. In February 2020, the channel’s license was briefly suspended following its coverage of the Delhi riots.