(CEHURDES/IFEX) – CEHURDES welcomes the Supreme Court verdict in the case involving government directives over FM radio stations. The verdict is in line with constitutionally guaranteed press freedom and freedom of expression. On 26 July 2001, the special bench of the Supreme Court cancelled the government’s instruction to private FM stations. Justices Laxman Prasad Aryal, […]
(CEHURDES/IFEX) – CEHURDES welcomes the Supreme Court verdict in the case involving government directives over FM radio stations. The verdict is in line with constitutionally guaranteed press freedom and freedom of expression.
On 26 July 2001, the special bench of the Supreme Court cancelled the government’s instruction to private FM stations. Justices Laxman Prasad Aryal, Kedar Nath Upadhyaya and Top Bahadur Singh stated that the directive was against the constitutional provision related to “right to freedom” and “right to information”.
According to the government directives, all privately operated FM radio stations were prevented from collecting and broadcasting their own news programmes. This followed a 16 January cabinet decision. The FM stations are only allowed to broadcast second hand news collected by state owned media. They could only broadcast those reports after the authenticity of the news
had been verified.
Challenging the decision, advocates Madhab Kumar Basnet and Sudip Poudel filed a case on 26 January, arguing that the government’s directives
violated constitutional provisions and National Broadcasting Regulations, 2052 BS.
