Mumbai: The Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea by a Mumbai-based petitioner against government-owned broadcaster Prasar Bharati, seeking a 24×7 dedicated television channel, for Sindhi language speakers.
The petitioner, cultural group Sindhi Sangat, had filed the appeal after a single-judge bench of Delhi High Court, in February 2024, disposed of its petition demanding a television channel. This was after the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting expressed their inability to start a channel because of scarcity of funds and staff.
Mahim resident Asha Chand, who heads Sindhi Sangat, had filed a petition the Delhi High Court in 2015, saying that the public broadcaster was obliged under article 14 of the Constitution to run a television channel for a linguistic minority. The petition had been argued by the late jurist Ram Jethmalani when it was first filed.
During the hearing of the appeal last week, Senior Advocate Indira Jaising, who represented the petitioner, argued, “They (Prasar Bharati) have've done it for every other language. There are 22 dedicated 24×7 channels for other languages.”
Jaisingh had told the court that a dedicated channel in the Sindhi language would help sustain and even revive the Sindhi culture. Jaising said that Sindhi speakers contribute to the society and economy.
She said that Sindhis are at the risk of losing their culture and the petitioners have made it their life's purpose to revive the language. "While my parents made it a point to pass down the language to me, today even my own nieces, nephews are unable to even speak the language,” she told the court.
In their judgment, the bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said there are other languages like Dogri, Santali, Bodo, and Sanskrit that are, like Sindhi, included in the 8th schedule of the Constitution, but have no dedicated government-run television channel. The judges said that DD Girnar, DD Rajasthan, and DD Sahyadri were broadcasting Sindhi programmes. This, they said, makes the test of 'adequate coverage' contemplated in existing laws.
