The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a reply from Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) and Attorney General for Pakistan in response to allegations that Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) was running an FM Radio in 56 cities of the country.
Appearing before a two-member judge bench led by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan in the Media Commission recommendations case, Asma Jahangir, counsel for Rashed Rahman, alleged that ISPR is running an FM radio channel without seeking permission from Pemra. She further alleged that ISPR was also running a number of media cells and production houses although the Pemra has not issued any licence to ISPR.
Responding to a court's query that why she was raising an objection over an ISPR activity, Asma Jahangir said it was the national money, spent on communications. Appearing before the bench in response to Hamid Mir's request, Pemra Chairman Absar Alam submitted a detailed report pertaining to airing of social messages on private TV channels which were 10 percent specified for all the TV channels. However, one of the members of the bench, Justice Gulzar Ahmad, said that instead of 10 percent time for social service message the repot has identified only minutes to which Alam said the report would be corrected accordingly.
Submitting before the court in response to pleas of working journalists and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Yasin Azad in the matter, Additional Attorney General for Pakistan Aamir Rehman Chaudhry requested for more time to file a reply on grounds that various departments have submitted reports which needs to be compiled with. Granting time in the matter, the bench adjourned the hearing of case for an indefinite period.
Comments
Comments are closed.