New Delhi: The Press Council of India has issued a show cause notice to The Caravan on the magazine' article titled Screams from the Army Post, which was previously removed after an order was issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
The Caravan then filed a writ suit in the Delhi High Court challenging the order of the I&B Ministry.
In a statement dated October 15, The Caravan said, “On 1 October, The Caravan received a show-cause notice from the Press Council of India regarding the story Screams from the Army Post. The story, published online and in our February issue of the magazine, is about the torture of numerous civilians by Indian Army personnel in Poonch and Rajouri districts of Jammu and Kashmir on 22 December 2023, in which three persons died as a result of their injuries”, the Wire reported.
The Caravan's statement further stated that long after The Caravan had already withdrawn the story from its website and the URLs specified in the order, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting lodged a complaint to the PCI on March 5.
“We are shocked at the PCI’s decision to issue a show-cause notice to us seven months later, where a basic assessment of the complaint would have made clear the MIB’s actions against The Caravan constitutes an act of censorship and the suppression of press freedom. Further, the show cause notice has been issued beyond the period of forty-five days stipulated under Regulation 5 of the Press Council (Procedure for Inquiry) Regulations and is therefore barred by limitation,” says the statement.
“The PCI’s mandate is to protect the freedom of the press and to uphold its right to bring forward stories that are in the interest of the public good. By sending us this show-cause notice, and slapping on alleged violations of norms that do not seem applicable to the report in the first place, the PCI has failed its mandate,” the statement added.
In the statement, the Caravan stressed that it fully stands by its story.