With the Press Council of India (PCI) continuing to remain defunct months after its chairperson demitted office and over a year after the expiry of its term, Rajya Sabha MP Sasmit Patra on Tuesday pressed the Union government to act without further delay, asserting that the prolonged vacuum risks weakening institutional safeguards meant to protect press freedom and enforce media standards.
Raising the issue during a special mention in the Upper House, Patra, a member of the Biju Janata Dal representing Odisha, pointed out that the 14th council’s tenure ended in October 2024 and that its chairperson, former Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Desai, stepped down in December, leaving the statutory, quasi-judicial body without leadership at a time when regulatory oversight of the media assumes heightened significance.
Stating that the matter warrants urgent governmental attention, he urged the Centre to complete the appointment of a new chairperson and ensure the constitution of a fresh council, arguing that such steps are indispensable to uphold democratic values and reinforce mechanisms of accountability within the press, whose freedom the council is mandated to preserve even as it is tasked with maintaining and improving professional standards.
The PCI comprises 28 members in addition to its chairperson, and its structure brings together parliamentary nominees, representatives of statutory bodies and members drawn from the media industry.
Two members are nominated to the council from the Rajya Sabha by the Vice President, three from the Lok Sabha by the Speaker, and one each by the University Grants Commission, the Bar Council of India and the Sahitya Akademi, while the remaining 20 members are to be drawn from among working journalists, newspaper proprietors and a news agency manager.
Of these 20 industry representatives, thirteen must be working journalists — including six editors and seven non-editors — six must represent newspaper owners of varying scales and one must be a manager of a news agency, and their induction follows nominations submitted by recognised associations, subject to scrutiny and clearance by a committee within the council.
Despite the notification of several new members after the previous council’s expiry, there are currently no members from the working journalist category, and reports last month indicated that the constitution of the council cannot proceed in the absence of a chairperson.
The government had earlier informed Parliament that the nomination of working journalists was sub judice before the Delhi High Court, and in January, the court upheld its earlier ruling, granting the Mumbai Press Club recognition as an eligible association while dismissing the Editors’ Guild of India’s challenge to the scrutiny committee’s rejection of its claim.
The scrutiny committee cited procedural lapses in the Editors’ Guild’s documentation, whereas the Mumbai Press Club alleged that its exclusion, alongside that of the Guild, followed their vocal interventions on issues including the detention of journalists in Kashmir and large-scale media layoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic.