India: 15th Press Council Without a Chairperson!

One can describe it as an unfortunate development as the government-sponsored media watchdog in the largest democracy on Earth has seemingly failed to appoint a new chairperson in due course of time. Press Council of India (PCI),  a quasi-judicial body, has now gone headless as the full three-year term of the PCI chairperson has expired on 16 December 2025. Former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai took charge on 17 June 2022 as the first lady chief of PCI, and later her tenure was extended for six months. Till this moment, neither the PCI website (https://presscouncil.nic.in/) nor any official communiqué has stated that the current chairperson has been reappointed (or someone conferred on the responsibility)  with immediate effect. Not to mention that the head of the autonomous body, initially set up in 1966 under the Press Council Act 1965, the PCI remained inactive for a full year as the tenure of 14th council expired on 5 October 2024. The statutory 15th council is yet to be fully constituted.

Initiated to safeguard and nurture the freedom of the press in India, the PCI continues to be devoid of working journalists and editors as its members. Besides its chairperson (whose tenure came to an end on 16 December last), the PCI has five functioning members, namely  Sudhanshu Trivedi and  Brij Lal (nominated from Rajya Sabha), Ashwini K Mohapatra (University Grants Commission),  Manan Kumar Mishra (Bar Council of India) and  K Sreenivasarao (Sahitya Akademi). As stated on the PCI website, they all assumed charges on 20 December  2024 with a three-year term.

However, a few months back, Union information & broadcasting minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed that Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla had already nominated three members (Sambit Patra, Naresh Mhaske and  Kali Charan Munda) for the 15th council. Lately, six members, namely Sudhir Kumar Panda, MV Shreyams Kumar, Gurinder Singh, Arun Kumar Tripathi, Braj Mohan Sharma and Arti Tripathi (who either own or carry on the business of management in big/ medium/ small newspapers) have been included in the council. The 28-member PCI should have 13 individuals representing the professional journalists (out of whom 6 need to be editors of newspapers and 7 working journalists), and those seats are still vacant.

If the PCI becomes headless, the question arises, who else will take care of the robust Indian print media fraternity (comprising over 100,000 publications, endorsed by the Registrar of Newspapers for India, in various frequencies and languages? The billion-plus nation also supports nearly 400 satellite news channels along with millions of portals, WhatsApp channels and other digital media outlets. However, it deserves mention that the PCI can only oversee the functioning of newspapers, periodicals and news agencies. The rest of all modern technology-driven news outlets remain out of its purview. 

Moreover, the PCI has limited power to enforce its guidelines by penalising print outlets as well as their editors and working journalists for violations. The PCI can receive complaints against a particular newspaper/news agency or an editor/working journalist against their professional misconduct, deteriorating the standard of journalistic behaviour. More importantly, it also enjoys the authority to make observations whenever the conduct of any government is found inappropriate while ensuring freedom of the press. So the demand to bring all the news channels, radio and digital platforms under the PCI’s jurisdiction continues.

The present crisis started as many all India journo-bodies opposed a change in the PCI rules to pick up members from various press clubs instead of the National Union of Working Journalists. Some of them even approached the court, making the situation more complex. They argue that the press clubs are basically recreational bodies and their coverage areas normally stick to a particular region, city or town. Often, the press clubs offer memberships to non-working journalists (like academicians, writers, film personalities and also diplomats) to enhance their influence, and hence their members may not do justice to the professional media personnel in various crucial junctures. More precisely, the press club/press guild/ media club cannot have an all-India body (nonetheless, the nomenclature Press Club of India) with representatives from various parts of the vast country. On the other hand, they argued that recognised journalist unions usually comprise members from different parts of India.

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