The Union government has issued notice to Sudarshan TV channel for violating the programme code over the telecast of a series showing alleged infiltration of Muslims into the UPSC, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
A bench, presided over by Justice D Y Chandrachud, deferred the hearing on a writ petition filed by advocate Firoz Iqbal Khan for granting a permanent injunction against the channel to October 5.
Mehta submitted that a response has been sought from the channel by September 28. He asked the court to defer the hearing until then.
On this, the bench pointed out that had it not intervened into the matter, all 10 episodes of the programme would have been run by now.
The top court had on September 15 restrained the TV channel, which had aired four out of the 10 episodes of the programme, saying that it made an insidious attempt to vilify Muslims as it propagated that they were "infiltrating" the civil services.
The news channel, for its part, had said that it had exercised investigative journalism for telecasting the programme “UPSC Jihad” being aired on one of their most important shows -- 'Bindas Bol'. It claimed to have prepared 10 episodes after collecting different material, including foreign fundings records to Zakat Foundation which supported Muslim candidates for civil services. The channel also claimed that it was very popular among the public.
The court, subsequently, said that a pre-publication ban order is "extreme recourse" and is like a "nuclear weapon" and can "take it down to slippery slope". It, however, asked the channel to assuage apprehension on use of "stereotypes", "rants", "rhetorics" and "hurtful" denigration of an entire community.