The Malayalam news channel MediaOne, which was forced to go off air five days ago after the Centre revoked its broadcasting licence, continues to be “unilaterally kept in the dark” about the extreme action, which is a “denial of natural justice” unacceptable in a democracy, its editor has said.

MediaOne TV, which has carved out a niche for itself in the crowded Malayalam news channel space, faced the blackout on Monday when it received an order from the Union information and broadcasting ministry revoking its licence. It resumed operations after close to seven hours on being granted interim relief by Kerala High Court.

The I&B ministry merely cited lack of “security clearance” from the Union home ministry but provided no further explanation. MediaOne, owned by Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd, extensively covers minority issues, criticises the RSS and is popular among Malayalis in the Gulf.

The channel had applied for renewal of licence in May 2021, well ahead of the due date of September 30. While it continued broadcasting, expecting a renewal of the 10-year licence in due course, the company received a showcase notice on January 5 asking why its licence to uplink and downlink should not be revoked.

MediaOne clarified in its reply that it had not violated any norms and faced no complaints. The I&B ministry on January 31 went ahead and revoked the licence, not finding the channel’s response satisfactory.

Pramod Raman, the editor of MediaOne, questioned the rationale behind the action. “The MIB (ministry of information and broadcasting) has not even found it apt to inform the channel that the reply was not satisfactory, revoked the licence at the very next step instead. At the outset, this action amounts to the denial of natural justice,” he said in a statement.

Raman, who read the first live telecast of a news bulletin by a private channel in India in 1995 when he was with Asianet, continued: “Secondly, no information has been passed to us as to why the security clearance was cancelled, was that a step based on any complaint from inside or outside the government, was there any intelligence input to substantiate the action, nothing was conveyed to MediaOne. This means the government is unilaterally keeping us in the dark, which is in no way acceptable in a democratic country.”

The MediaOne editor said the I&B ministry order cancelling the licence did “not elaborate as to what is the context of the cancellation of security clearance”. Neither did it provide any details of the Union home ministry decision refusing security clearance, Raman said.

Kerala High Court on Wednesday extended till February 7 (Monday) the interim stay on the central government order cancelling the licence and told additional solicitor-general of India S. Manu that it wanted to know the reason why the Union home ministry did not grant security clearance. The court directed him to produce all relevant files from the home ministry when the matter comes up for hearing on Monday.

MediaOne had earlier been barred from broadcasting for 48 hours along with its Malayalam rival Asianet News TV in March 2020 for allegedly violating the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1998, during their coverage of the riots in Delhi against the backdrop of the protests against the Centre’s Citizenship Amendment Act.

In his statement on Friday, Raman said no one had ever raised any national security concern against the channel since its inception 10 years ago.“There was not even a single instance of a complaint being raised against the channel on account of national security in these years. If there was one, the government was free to initiate action based on their inference,” he contended.

Raman alleged that freedom of press was being “butchered”.

Both the ruling Left and the Opposition Congress in Kerala have come out strongly against the action on MediaOne. A joint delegation of MPs cutting across the political divide met I&B minister Anurag Thakur earlier this week and sought withdrawal of the action.

Kerala BJP president K. Surendran, however, backed the action and termed the channel “anti-national” since it is promoted by the Jamaat-e-Islami. “There is no doubt that MediaOne is an anti-national channel. The Jamaat-e-Islami is an organisation that works against this nation,” he said.

The Jamaat-e-Islami is a Muslim Right-wing organisation that is known to hold rigid views on religion. MediaOne’s editorial policies have, however, never been accused of being influenced by the Jamaat-e-Islami’s views and even the diehard critics of the outfit say that it is has every right to back a TV channel.

“I am a strong critic of the Jamaat-e-Islami and do not approve of their socio-religious outlook. But they are not a banned outfit and have every right to run their media channel and newspaper,” socio-political commentator and author M.N. Karassery told The Telegraph on Saturday, warning of a more potent danger in the action.

“Such an action is sending a clear-cut message that no one has the right to criticise or evaluate the government or the Prime Minister. And the message is not just to MediaOne or the Madhyamam group, but every other media house. This is a very dangerous development that is a reflection of the autocratic tendency in the country,” Karassery said.

Everyone at MediaOne is now waiting for the decision of the high court where the case comes up on Monday.