‘Entirely misconceived’: Supreme Court dismisses plea seeking ban on BBC after PM Modi documentary

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition seeking a total ban on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and BBC India from operating from Indian territory in the aftermath of the documentary 'India: The Modi Question,' which was aired in the wake of the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Following the controversy over the broadcaster's documentary 'India: The Modi Question,' Vishnu Gupta, head of the Hindu Sena, and Beerendra Kumar Singh, a farmer, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) demanding the ban. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and MM Sundresh ruled that the petition was misconceived and that the Court could not impose censorship.

"The writ petition is entirely misconceived and has no merit and is accordingly dismissed," PTI quoted the bench as saying.

The BBC's documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi was allegedly the "result of deep conspiracy against the global rise of India and its prime minister," according to the complaint, which claimed that the BBC had a bias against India and the Indian government.

"The documentary film by BBC relating to Gujarat violence 2002 implicating Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not only reflective of anti-Narendra Modi cold propaganda broadcast to tarnish his image alone but this is anti-Hinduism propaganda by the BBC to destroy the social fabric of India," the plea had alleged.

Authorities in India scrambled to stop screenings of the programme at colleges and restrict social media clips of the BBC documentary on PM Modi's tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister during in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots.

The government blocked the BBC's two-part documentary "India: The Modi Question" and forbade anyone from posting snippets on social media, invoking emergency powers under its information technology laws. Many links to the documentary were removed by Twitter and YouTube after they responded with the request.

The Ministry of External Affairs slammed the documentary as a "propaganda piece" that lacks objectivity and exhibits a colonial attitude.

The prohibition sparked outrage among opposition parties and human rights organisations, who saw it as an attack on journalistic freedom. It also increased attention to the documentary, prompting thousands of social media users to share movie clips on WhatsApp, Telegram, and Twitter.

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