FM radio cannot be prohibited from airing
Kathmandu, Nov 10 - The Supreme Court (SC) Thursday continued its hearing on petitions filed against the recently promulgated media ordinance and the mid-night raid on Kantipur FM.
Pleading on behalf of Kantipur FM (KFM), advocate Badri Bahadur Karki said the FM radio cannot be prohibited from airing its programmes.
Karki, referring to the forceful seizure of KFM's uplinking equipment by the government, said the officials from the Ministry of Information and Communications had not cited any radio act under which the equipment could be seized.
Saying that the ordinance is vague on what constitutes news and informative programmes, Karki said, "The state is not always right," adding, "What we are defending is the freedom of expression, not what offence Kantipur FM has committed."
Another lawyer Madhav Basnet refuted the argument of one of the government's lawyers Balkrishna Neupane who said that freedom of expression applies only to individual citizens and not to what he called "the business rights of any agency or company."
Basnet argued that the media ordinance has directly infringed on individual freedom of expression since individuals always make up a company or agency.
The hearing continued today before the special bench of Chief Justice Dilip Kumar Poudel, Justices Sharada Prasad Pundit and Kedar Prasad Giri, which resumed on Sunday after the Tihar festival.
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