Govt defends, Oppn slams Ordinance
Tribune News Service and agencies

NEW DELHI, Aug 30 — The process for the selection of a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in place of Mr S.S. Gill and the Chairman of the Prasar Bharati Board (PBB) will start within a week, the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Mrs Sushma Swaraj, said here today.

The three-member appointment committee headed by the Vice-President, Mr Krishan Kant, and comprising the Press Council of India Chairman, Justice P.B. Sawant, and Mr T.V.R. Shenoy would also select the Member (Finance) and the Member (Personnel) along with another member to replace Mr K. Padmanabhaiah who had resigned from the PBB after he was appointed Governor, Mrs Swaraj said.

Clarifying that the other part-time PBB members — Mr B.G. Verghese, Dr Abid Hussain, Prof U.R. Rao, Prof Romila Thapar and Mr Rajendra Yadav — would continue but their terms to ensure a rotational system would be fixed by the government, the minister said the status of Prasar Bharati employees would become clear within a week after her discussions with their representatives.

The ministry would decide which of the members would retire after a two- year, four year and six-year term, she pointed out.

Under the original Act, employees of Prasar Bharati Board were given an option to decide whether they wanted to remain government servants or join the board.

Mrs Swaraj stressed that the text of the Ordinance was passed by the Union Cabinet "unanimously, without controversy and very smoothly". The minister said that while she had taken a conscious decision not to react to newspaper reports, the media continued to speculate over the fate of the PBB.

When asked about Mr Gill’s decision to go court, the minister said that he was free to do so and the government would defend its decision. The concurrence of the Law Department was obtained before putting the Ordinance before the Cabinet, she said, adding that there had been eight earlier precedents when a Bill had been passed by one House and not by the other and an Ordinance had been promulgated.

Speaking about the sequence of events after the Bill had been passed by the Lok Sabha on July 31, Mrs Swaraj said that August 2 and 3 were holidays and the Bill was sent to the President for his approval (as provided for in the Article 117 (3) in the case of bills with financial memoranda) only on the afternoon of August 4. The Bill was to be sent to the President on August 3 at 5 p.m., but it could not be delivered, she clarified.

When asked why she did not bring the Bill to the Rajya Sabha whose members had offered to sit beyond August 4 for taking it up, Mrs Swaraj shot back: "I am not bound by their strategy". It was the government’s prerogative to conduct its legislative business, she said adding that "I have not intentionally bypassed the Rajya Sabha".

Meanwhile, the sacked CEO of the PBB, Mr S.S. Gill, has reiterated that he will challenge the Ordinance in court.

The Janata Dal today termed the controversial Prasar Bharati Ordinance as "unconstitutional" and said it was "a fraud perpetrated on Parliament".

"In terms of procedure it is unconstitutional, in terms of ideology undemocratic and in terms of value the Ordinance is unethical," Janata Dal senior leader and former Information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy told reporters here.

In a separate press briefing, another senior party leader Ram Vilas Paswan said the dal was opposed to the Ordinance and its objective in promulgating it was not a honest one.

Mr Reddy said the Ordinance was "unconstitutional" as the Prasar Bharati Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha during the Budget session was not referred to the Rajya Sabha deliberately by the government.

"Even a person of meanest intelligence would have known that the Bill would be buried fathoms deep," he remarked.

Pointing out that 124 Rajya Sabha MPs had expressed concern over government move to circumvent the Rajya Sabha on the Prasar Bharati issue, Mr Reddy charged Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee with having shown contempt for the MPs’ letters.

"It is a blot on the career of Mr Vajpayee as the Prime Minister," he remarked.

Meanwhile, the Congress, the Janata Dal and the CPM today termed as "unconstitutional" and a "fraud" on Parliament the promulgation of an Ordinance restoring the original 1990 Prasar Bharati Act.

Mr Gill, whose services as Prasar Bharati chief stood terminated following the promulgation of the Ordinance, said he would move the court by Tuesday for an interim stay on the Ordinance.

Congress spokesperson Girija Vyas said the Vajpayee Government handled the issue in an "undemocratic manner" by having an Ordinance issued when a Bill had already been passed by the Lok Sabha.

The Janata Dal described the Ordinance as "unconstitutional" and a "fraud" perpetrated on Parliament and said "it is a blot on the career of Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee as Prime Minister."

CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said the government should have brought the Prasar Bharati Bill in the Rajya Sabha after it was passed by the Lok Sabha "but instead chose to ignore it exposing its mala fide intentions."

Mr Gill was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati during the tenure of Mr Jaipal Reddy as the Information and Broadcasting Minister in the previous United Front Government.

Taking strong exception to the promulgation of the Ordinance, CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said the government should have brought forward the Prasar Bharati Bill in the Rajya Sabha after it was passed by the Lok Sabha. "But it has chosen to ignore it and Parliament and exposed its mala fide intentions."

The party would shortly prepare a strategy against the Ordinance which, he alleged, was not aimed at granting greater autonomy to Doordarshan and All India Radio. "The government wants to use them as its mouthpiece".

Leaders of other political parties, including the Samajwadi Party, the CPI and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, were not available here for their comments.

The Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha (RLM) today welcomed removal of Prasar Bharati CEO S.S. Gill. RLM spokesman Amar Singh, MP, told PTI on the telephone from Mumbai that Mr Gill used abusive language to Samajwadi Party (SP) President Mulayam Singh Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal President Laloo Prasad Yadav and many others except for former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral and former Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy