Chennai,Jun12 (PTI) A PIL has been filed in the Madras High Court for a direction to the Tamil Nadu authorities concerned to provide live telecast and webcast of the state legislative assembly proceedings. When the petition came up today before the First Bench, comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam, the Judges referred it to a Bench headed by Justice D Murugesan for hearing. In the petition, state president of Lok Satta Party D Jagadheeswaran pointed out that at present Kerala and Andhra Pradesh telecast proceedings of their respective state legislative assemblies while in Tamil Nadu only edited version was being released to the visual media for telecast. "The citizens right to know what business transpires in the state legislative assembly is curtailed by the state releasing only selective videos," the petitioner said. The Kerala government had introduced the live webcasting of its assembly proceedings and Andhra Pradesh also had a dedicated website for live streaming of its assembly business, the petitioner said. The PIL lamented that though edited versions of the state assembly proceedings of Tamil Nadu were sent to media houses, only selective portions were being telecast. "What the citizen ultimately sees is partisan news packaged as a political campaign," the petitioner claimed. Referring to the government announcement that the state-run Arasu Cable TV would telecast assembly proceedings live, the petitioner said the decision was yet to be implemented. The petitioner submitted that the party had written to the authorities concerned on May 17, requesting telecast or webcast of assembly proceedings keeping in view the interest of the masses for viewing 'unbiased and impartial' coverage of the proceedings. The government was, however, yet to respond and so the the present plea was filed.PTI GR BN
