ISLAMABAD: The Islam­abad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday banned airing of Indian movies, dramas and advertisements on Pakistani TV channels and stopped private television channels from broadcasting substandard infotainment programmes in Ramazan transmission.

Justice Shaukat Aziz Sid­diqui of the IHC, while disposing of identical petitions filed by Waqas Malik, Inamur Rahim Khawaja and other advocates against airing of ‘obscene content’ on private channels, direc­ted the Pak­istan Electronic Media Reg­ulatory Autho­rity (Pemra) to ensure “there shall be complete ban on advertisement, dramas and films of foreign origin, India in particular”.

Barrister Syed Ali Zafar, counsel for the Pakistan Broadcasting Association (PBA), said the PBA would file an intra-court appeal against the single bench order before a division bench.

The court, however, allo­wed TV channels airing of “10 per cent of the foreign content, which is permissible as per rules…subject to the approval by the committee” comprising federal secretaries of the relevant ministries.

The IHC directed the committee to “ensure that contents proposed to be aired are not in conflict with the injunctions of Islam, Constitution, Pemra laws, a code of conduct and judgements of the superior courts.” The court observed that the regulator should proceed against TV channels for any violation of the code of conduct.

About special transmission during the month of Ramazan, Justice Siddiqui issued directions that “in the holy month of Ramazan, no programme besides the guidelines issued by Pemra shall be aired and strict monitoring, followed by stern action against the violators shall be taken.”

Also, the court ordered “no programme suggestive of containing lottery and gambling even apparently for noble purpose like [sponsored] Haj/Umrah tickets etc shall be promoted.”

Justice Siddiqui made it mandatory for private TV channels to air prayer call (Azan) five times a day.

The counsel for the PBA argued that Pemra was the competent authority to regulate media programming and a high court could not regulate this.

At the hearing, Justice Siddiqui remarked that Aamir Liaquat had introduced the culture of doing strange and indecent things in the Ramazan transmission. The rest of the anchors were his followers, he said, adding that Pemra should issue notices to all including Faisal Qureshi, Sahir Lodhi and Fahad Mustafa.

For commentary on a cricket match TV channels hired experts, but for religious programmes and Ramazan transmission, model girls, actors and even cricketers were being hired, Justice Siddiqui observed.

Barrister Zafar argued that Article 19 of the Constitution guaranteed the fundamental right of “freedom of speech and expression” and “freedom of press”. These rights could only be restricted on grounds of interests of glory of Islam, integrity of Pakistan, decency and morality as specified in law. PBA and Pemra have voluntarily agreed to a Code of Conduct under the auspices of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. If any channel violates the Pemra law or the Code of Conduct then Pemra can take action against that particular channel in accordance with the law.

He argued that since the IHC was a court of law and not a regulator, it had no authority to take over Pemra’s role and pass directions on programming of channels. This was the role of Pemra only and to decide what was obscene or indecent or against the Islamic values were matters of policy and fell within the domain of the executive, he added.

Barrister Zafar submitted that no generalized standard of what was decent or indecent, obscene or not obscene could be laid down or applied by the court. If such petitions were allowed, every form of bigotry would be converted into a moral basis for law to abolish freedom of speech and expression and freedom of press. He said the court also had no jurisdiction to decide generally on what was moral or decent and which programme fell and did not fall in this category.

The petitioners were of the opinion that Islam shall be religion of the state according to Article 2 of the Constitution of Pakistan. The petition said the different articles of the Constitutions allowed the state to enable people to live their lives according to the teachings of Islam. However, the petition added, public at large were helpless as they were immensely invaded by “filthy stuff” through TV channels.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2018