The Rajya Sabha MP, in his plea, said that Ministry of Information & Broadcasting had issued a notice on March 2, 2015 inviting applications from eligible parties for the Phase-III e-auction process of FM radio channels. In the course of processing their applications, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had denied security clearance to the Sun TV network of Maran brothers, resulting in cancellation of its pleas for auctioning, Swamy claimed. The BJP MP has referred to the Madras and Delhi High Court judgements allowing Sun TV network to participate in private FM radio auction and said "the nodal ministry (MHA) failed to make a full-proof security clearance policy which is primarily the reason for the divergent views of different High Courts of the country." "The inadequacy, vacuum and non-uniformity in the security clearance policy of the government has developed this problem where a tainted person or a company can be a part of a process which can have a serious impact on the national security of the country," it claimed. Swamy has urged the apex court to "restrain the MHA and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to withhold the process of auction of private FM radio channels Phase III & airwaves of the entities or individual in view of the denial of the security clearance."

Source: dna September 14, 2016 18:56 UTC