The power conferred on the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly to expunge certain remarks from the proceedings of the House if she/he was of the opinion that they were defamatory, indecent, unparliamentary or undignified cannot be a reason to refuse live telecast or webcast, AIADMK chief whip S.P. Velumani has contended before the Madras High Court.
In a writ petition seeking a direction to the Assembly Secretary to telecast or webcast the entire proceedings without any censorship, the chief whip said the power to expunge certain remarks had been conferred on the Speaker only to ensure that they do not get published in newspapers and journals and not form part of the Legislative Assembly records.
“People should not know that certain remarks made in the legislative proceedings were never the rationale behind the Speaker’s power to expunge those remarks. Several other State legislatures telecast their proceedings live despite their Speakers having the same conundrum surrounding the power of expunging as well,” the petitioner’s affidavit read.
He also claimed that the expunged remarks could always be edited out after the completion of live telecast and not make them part of the archived records. He stated that technology had developed so much that it would hardly cost anything to live telecast or webcast the entire proceedings of the House whenever it is in session and then edit out the expunged remarks.
Mr. Velumani claimed that uninterrupted telecast of the Assembly proceedings was not possible during the AIADMK regime between 2011 and 2021 due to budget constraints but now the DMK government was resorting to selective telecast of the Assembly proceedings only to blackout the pertinent questions raised by the opposition members.
The petitioner also alleged that only the answers given by the Ministers during the Question Hour were being telecast now while the questions raised by the opposition members were being edited out. “The debates are also telecast with just speeches delivered by the members of the ruling party and not by others,” he charged.
