Parliament panel for more powers to Press Council

New Delhi, Sept 28: A Parliamentary Panel has made a strong case for giving more powers to the Press Council of India(PCI) and recommended amendment of the related Act for the purpose.

It said the Council at present can issue only advisories which carry only a moral force and are not enforceable in a court of law.

''With growing commercialisation of the print media, there may be violations of the Act in subjects relating to surrogate advertisement, obscene pictures/materials. Advisories carrying only moral force many not be effective in regulating these violations,'' said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology in its latest report.

Therefore, it said, there was urgent need to amend the PCI Act of 1978 to provide the Council with more regulatory powers for maintaining sound ethical and moral standard of journalism, said the Committee.

It said there should be wider consultations among the interested parties to evolve consensus on important issues relating to the media to further strengthen it.

The Press Council was established for preserving the freedom of the press and maintaning and improving the standard of newspapers and news agencies in the country, so it should have some powers to make the press comply with its directives, it said.

The Press Council too had recently expressed the need for some powers in the changed circumstances when violations of media ethics had become more frequent.

UNI