LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday suspended the operation of a Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority's (Pemra's) order regarding suspension of Channel-24 NewsHD's license. The court observed that the case will be heard on a daily basis and directed the Pemra's counsel to submit a written reply in response to the petition on Wednesday.

Earlier, the petitioner's counsel argued that the Pemra suspended the license of the news channel without affording a proper opportunity of hearing. He said the respondent authority took the impugned action on alleged violation of rules in terms of licenses' category.

He told the court that the petitioner-channel had applied with the authority for change of licenses' category in 2015 and the application was partially approved. He also argued that the impugned action taken by the Pemra's chairman was unlawful as such orders required to be issued with consensus of all members of the authority. He contended that the authority had allowed many license holders to change category but targeted the petitioner discriminately.

He urged the court to set aside the impugned decision of the Pemra for being illegal.

The counsel for Pemra opposed the maintainability of the petition before LHC, saying the Islamabad High Court had the territorial jurisdiction to hear such matters. He urged the court not to grant a stay against Pemra's decision.

The court, turned down the request and suspended the operation of the impugned order. The Pemra in a statement had stated that channel Value TV, for which the license was issued to M/s Central Media Network Pvt, had illegally changed its name to Channel24NewsHD.

It said the channel was granted the license to air entertainment content but instead it was persistently illegally and unlawfully airing news and current affairs in violation of Pemra laws.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020