Madras High Court asks TN government to consider live telecast of State Assembly proceedings

The Madras High Court Tuesday asked the Tamil Nadu government to consider live telecast of State Assembly proceedings. .A bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy also suggested that if live telecast of such proceedings was not possible, the State could consider telecasting the same with a “time lag of five to ten minutes, after expunging” any objectionable comments or conduct..The bench directed Advocate General PS Raman to get instructions on the same by March 11, the next date of hearing..The Court was hearing two public interest litigation (PIL) petitions filed in 2012 and 2015 by two regional parties from the State seeking live telecast of the TN Assembly proceedings.Last year, AIADMK leader SP Velumani had also demanded such live telecast and was impleaded as a party in the matter..On Tuesday, Raman told the Court that at present, the question hour and the call attention motion proceedings are already being streamed.The entire proceedings are not streamed live yet because, because sometimes, the speaker of the house expunges unparliamentary remarks from the records, Raman said..Senior Counsel Vijay Narayan, who appeared for Velumani, told the Court that often, issues raised by opposition members were being “blacked out” in such telecast of the Assembly proceedings..The Court then suggested streaming of the proceedings with a time lag.“Besides, if a member makes such remarks, it will only go against him. If you don’t want such remarks to go public, then delay the streaming by five to 10 minutes. When the parliamentary proceedings are telecast live, what is the problem in the Legislative Assembly proceedings?” the High Court said.