Journalists welcome High Court order

Media organisations and senior journalists have welcomed the AP High Court decision to de-freeze the bank accounts of Sakshi news paper and Television.

“We welcome the action of the High Court de-freezing Sakshi news paper and Televisions accounts,” Devulapalli Amar,  secretary, Indian Journalists Union (IJU) said here on Wednesday reacting to the courts ‘decision.

“This, coupled with quashing on the ban on advertisements to the media house is a victory of Journalist community,” he said.  Even as the highly stratified Telugu media industry looked the other way,  majority of the media bodies and senior journalists in the country stood firmly behind the Jagati Publications that publish Telugu daily Sakshi and Indira Television that runs sakshi TV while it was going through turbulent times in recent months.

As part of its probe into the disproportionate wealth case against its owner Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, the CBI had freezed the publication’s bank accounts, while the Congress government in the state stopped government advertisements despite Sakshi being no 2 in terms of circulations.

However the Andhra Pradesh Working Journalist Union (APWUJ) and Indian Journalists Union (IJU) held rallies throughout the state and submitted a memorandum to the Governor ESL Narasimhan stating that the action against Sakshi tantamount to gagging press freedom

“Its either Congress or Telugu Desam in the state, no third alternative is tolerated,” said senior Journalist and Input Editor of a Telugu News Channel Nemani Bhaskar  .
The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) too has condemned the freezing of the Sabshi bank accounts.

In a press release, INS president Ashish Bagga said the action could abruptly stop publication and render over  10,000 employees jobless.

“The CBI's action had come at a time when Andhra Pradesh is in election mode, a period when free dissemination of news and views was necessary to aid the democratic process, ”he added.

The premier body considered  the CBI's action as a threat to the freedom of the press, saying that such acts  would hamper the process of opinion-building in the forthcoming by-polls.  

Senior journalists representing several national and vernacular newspapers and television channels extended their support to the staff of Sakshi newspaper and Sakshi Television in their struggle.

A series of round-table conferences were organized by Sakshi employees at the local press club.  Veteran journalists ABK Prasad, Varada Chary and K Srinivas Reddy; resident editors of The Hindu and The New India Express Nagesh Kumar and GS Vasu; Namasthe Telangana Editor Allam Narayana, Zee Telugu TV channel CEO Sailesh Reddy, analysts Kommineni Srinivas Rao, Krishna Mohan, Katta Sekhar Reddy  were among those participated in the round-table conferences.