NEW DELHI: A Delhi Court is to hear on 14 January a fresh complaint filed by Zee News against steel magnate Naveen Jindal for allegedly calling News Broadcasting Standards Authority Chairman J S Verma who was considering the complaint against the news channel.

The matter was mentioned before CBI Special Judge Dharmesh Sharma alleging failure on the part of the Central Bureau of Investigation to take action against Jindal after receiving a complaint. According to the complaint, Justice Verma had also taken umbrage to Jindal?s conduct.

In another development, Judge Namita Kumari in the Patiala House Courts today fixed 8 March for pre-summoning evidence on the Criminal Defamation Case by Zee Business Editor Samir Ahluwalia against Jindal Steel and Power Limited, Jindal and 14 others relating to a series of exposes in the Coalgate scam.

The Criminal defamation has been filed against JSPL, and Jindal, Anand Goel, Haigreev Khaitan, Vikrant Gujral, Ravi Uppal, Arun Kumar Purwar, Ratan Jindal, Sushil Kumar Maroo, Sudarshan Kumar Garg, Hardip Singh Wirk, Ram Vinay Shah, Arun Kumar, Dinesh Kumar Saraogi, Tej Kishen Sadhu, and Rajeev Bhaduria.

Vijay Aggarwal, Counsel for Zee News Limited, said: ?The Court has taken cognizance of the offence of defamation which is punishable with two years of imprisonment under Section 500 IPC. The defamation against my client Mr. Samir Ahluwalia is based on false statements made during the press conference addressed by Mr. Naveen Jindal on 25 October 2012.?

Sudhir Chaudhary and Ahluwalia have earlier been implicated in a case relating to a series of exposes in the Coalgate scam involving Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal. The two Zee editors claimed that they wanted to expose Jindal?s attempt of silencing media coverage of Coalgate through a Rs One billion advertisement contract.

MUMBAI: The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court challenging the decision of the Indian Olympic Association?s special committee to recognise Hockey India as the national governing body for the game.

Justice Rajiv Shakdher sought responses from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, IOA, HI and International Hockey Federation on the IHF?s plea within two weeks and fixed the matter for hearing on 18 October. The court has said that the status quo, prevailing before Hockey India was declared as central body for hockey in the country, be maintained.

The impugned order passed by the IOA is clearly premeditated having already formed an opinion regarding the endorsement to be made in favour of the HI as regards the sole governing body in India, IHF said.

The impugned order passed is blatantly illegal and without jurisdiction because the Special Committee was formed by the IOA at the asking of the Respondent (International Hockey Federation) to decide the central authority governing the sport of hockey in India, the IHF said in its plea.

NEW DELHI: All applications for operating television channels or teleports have been given only 30 days from 25 May to furnish performance bank guarantee (PBG) and the permission fee as applicable.

An additional 15 days could be given only under exceptional circumstances, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has said.

It has clarified that no extension or correspondence will be entertained thereafter and those who fail to submit the PBG would not be given permission by the Ministry.

Earlier at the time of issuing the new Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines on 5 December last year, the Ministry had said applications that are at various stages of processing for permission to operate television channels or teleports will be given a period of three months to ?ensure conformity? to the new Guidelines.

This followed a Delhi High Court order which had said time should be given till 23 March 2012 for those who had applied before 5 December 2011.

Furthermore, these applicants will have to give an undertaking to abide by the amended Guidelines, and the applications of those who fail to ensure compliance within three months will be rejected, Information and Broadcasting Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com.

Parliament was recently informed that a total of 681 television channels were operational in the country in April this year, out of a total of 825 television channels which had been permitted by the government as on 19 January this year.

A total of 116 channels are still within the prescribed limit of one year for operationalisation under the Uplinking/Downlinking Guidelines.

The Ministry has found 37 channels failed to become operational even after one year of permission. The licence of five of these has been cancelled, three had requested for extension of time against notice of cancellation, and 27 TV channels had sought extension for operationalising their channels and they have been asked to submit Performance Bank Guarantee. The permission of two channels has been withdrawn at the request of the concerned company.

The teleports have to pay Rs 87,500 per MHz per annum to the Wireless Planning and Coordination wing of the Communications and Information Technology Ministry for uplinking TV channels.

The country had a total of 430 news and current affairs channels as on 17 November last year including 35 channels of the national broadcaster, Doordarshan.

The foreign equity holding including FDI/FII/NRI investments should not exceed 26 per cent of the paid-up equity of the applicant company seeking permission for news and current affairs channels. In the case of teleports which must have a networth of Rs 30 million for the first teleport and Rs 10 million for subsequent teleports the foreign equity cannot exceed 49 per cent.

As far as entertainment channels go, the applicant company, irrespective of its ownership, equity structure or management control, would be eligible to seek permission. But the entity applying for permission for downlinking a channel, uplinked from abroad must be a company registered in India under the Indian Companies Act 1956, irrespective of its equity structure, foreign ownership or management control.

NEW DELHI: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry today extended till 23 March to submit documents in support of their eligibility criteria for permission to operate television channels according to the amended Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines issued in December last year.

This follows directions of the Delhi High Court that all those who had applied before 5 December 2011 when the Guidelines were issued should be given a further extension. The earlier deadline was 4 March 2012.

This will also apply to applicants whose applications were at various stages of consideration in the Ministry.

The new Guidelines had raised the networth of news and current affairs channels almost seven times from Rs 30 million to Rs 200 million for the first channel and Rs 50 million for each additional channel while general entertainment channels and downlinking of foreign channels will have to show networth of Rs 50 million for the first channel as against Rs 15 million at present, and Rs 25 million for each additional channel.

The period of permission/registration for uplinking/downlinking of channels will be uniform at 10 years. Renewal of the permissions of TV channels will be considered for a period of 10 years at a time.

Despite protests from broadcasters, the condition of non-renewal of licences of channels found guilty of violating the terms and conditions of permission including violations of the Programme and Advertisement Code on five occasions or more remains.

The changes came about 18 months after Trai made its recommendations, since the Ministry had felt those recommendations were too steep and sent its own views to the regulator for taking a final view.