Reports claim that the HC has permitted Colors TRP-boosting show ‘Bigg Boss 4’ to be aired at its original time slot of 9 pm, after the channel took an undertaking of going for self-censorship.

After the Information and Broadcast Ministry failed to resolve the issue, Viacom 18 Media Pvt. Ltd. filed a fresh petition to the High Court. The High Court on Dec. 9, had ordered the Ministry to issue a fresh show-cause notice and sanction a hearing for the company.

The case was heard by a vacation Division Bench including Justices SJ Kathawalla and UD Salvi who gave a green signal to their plea, after its counsel Shyam Diwan and lawyer Ameet Naik gave a written undertaking of ‘not violating rules, self-censor objectionable scenes and dialogues and not provide clippings from the programme to any news channels.’

According to a source, “They also undertook not to screen any dialogue which is required to be beeped and screen any obscene gesture of the participants. The judges observed that the petitioners should not provide news channels with clippings of the episodes mentioned in the Ministry’s show-cause notice.”

The Bench told the Ministry to drag the channel to court without any show-cause notice, if any violations were violated by the channel.

Ministry’s argument
Advocate GS Sharma who was representing the case for I&B Ministry, has argued that the prime time violation was imposed so that the show was not viewed by children.

“Everything is done in the interest of public and children at large,” he argued.

Responding to his argument, the Bench said, “We are also not interested that children should see trash. Shifting the show to 11pm is not a solution. The purpose is that children should not see the programme, and it can be achieved if the channel agrees to self-censor it before telecast.”