Madras High Court asks TN Assembly Secretariat to consider live telecast with slight delay

The Madras High Court has asked the Tamil Nadu State Legislative Assembly Secretariat to consider telecasting the proceedings of the Legislative Assembly with a slight delay of five to 10 minutes, to allow the Speaker to remove any unparliamentary or objectionable material.

A bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Bharat Chakraborty asked Advocate General PS Raman to seek instructions on this by the next date of hearing, March 11.

The order was passed in a 2015 writ petition filed by Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam leader late A Vijayakanth, another petition by Lok Satta Party state president D Jagadeeswaran and a 2023 writ petition by AIADMK party chief whip SP Velumani. Demand for live telecast of TN Assembly proceedings.

On Tuesday, the Advocate General informed the court that the proceedings of Question Hour and Calling Attention Motion were already being telecast. However, he stressed that live telecast of entire parliamentary proceedings may not be possible due to the possible occurrence of unparliamentary statements, which the Speaker usually omits from the record.

In response to this, the court suggested telecasting the proceedings with a slight delay.

The court remarked why state legislative proceedings could not be telecast when parliamentary proceedings were already live.

Emphasizing that any unparliamentary remarks made by politicians would work against them, the court said that if there is no such wish, the secretariat can telecast the proceedings with a slight delay.