LHC full bench to hear Imran's plea against Pemra ban

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Saturday constituted a three-member bench to hear PTI chief Imran Khan’s plea against the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority’s decision to bar all satellite TV channels from broadcasting his speeches and press talks.

A three-member full bench comprising Justice Shams Mehmood Mirza, Justice Sajid Mehmood Sethi and headed by LHC CJ will hear the petition on March 13 (tomorrow).

The full bench is being formed days after the court suspended Pakistan PEMRA’s order. Justice Mirza had announced the suspension of the order while admitting the PTI chief's request for the formation of a full bench and sent the case to the LHC chief justice.

In the petition, Imran has named the media regulator and the authority’s director (operations, broadcast media) as respondents and pointed out that the IHC had set aside a similar prohibition order in the past.

The petition said that Pemra had issued the order “in excess of the jurisdiction vested in it and without having regard to the constitutional rights guaranteed under Articles 19 and 19-A of the Constitution”. It further contended that the authority was not empowered to issue a blanket prohibition order, which appears to be “in violation of the principle of proportionality”.

Last week, the media regulator slapped a ban on Imran’s speeches and press talks with “immediate effect” after he had lashed out at former army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa for allegedly “protecting incumbent rulers in their alleged corruption cases”.

In the prohibition order, Pemra referred to previous directives wherein all licencees were directed to “refrain from telecasting any content against state institutions”.

The authority noted that Imran, in his speeches and statements, was “leveling baseless allegations and spreading hate speech through his provocative statements against state institutions and officers which is prejudicial to the maintenance of law and order and is likely to disturb public peace and tranquillity.”

Pemra said that licencees telecasted the content without the effective utilisation of the time delay mechanism, in violation of the authority’s laws and judgements by the apex court.

“… therefore, the competent authority i.e. chairman Pemra in view of the above mentioned background and reasons, in exercise of delegated powers of the authority vested in Section 27(a) of the Pemra Ordinance 2002 as amended by Pemra (Amendment) Act 2007, hereby prohibits broadcast/rebroadcast of speech(s)/press talks (recorded or live) of Imran Khan on all satellite TV channels with immediate effect,” the order said.