When can India’s press council get a new chairperson?
Nava Thakuria- Guwahati Based Senior Journalist.
Is it possible to have a quasi-judicial body like the Press Council of India to survive for weeks without its chairperson? Should the largest democracy on Earth put such an example where its government recognized autonomous media watchdog faces an existential crisis as the 15th council of PCI still devoid of a functioning head and 13 seats? How come a press council runs its business without filling these 13 seats, meant for millions of media professionals, for more than a year now, whereas the term of a council is limited to three years only? Many such pertinent questions emerge among media professionals in the south Asian nation, as the regular three-year term (as well as a permissible extended period of six months) of immediate past PCI chairperson Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai came to end on 16 December 2025.
A number of official communiqués were made to the PCI office by this writer in the last few days, requesting information about the current PCI team, but it vein (even a courtesy response mail did not arrive). According to the official website (https://www.presscouncil.nic.in/CurrentChairperson.aspx), Justice RP Desai continues to be the chairperson after taking charge on 17 June 2022 till date. However, the retired judge of Supreme Court of India has already been appointed as the chairperson of Eighth Pay Commission.
With more to it, the tenure of 14th council expired on 5 October 2024 and various initiatives to constitute the statutory 15th council faced different hurdles. Currently the PCI has functioning members namely Sudhanshu Trivedi, Brij Lal (Rajya Sabha lawmakers), Sambit Patra, Naresh Mhaske and Kali Charan Munda (Lok Sabha members), Ashwini K Mohapatra (University Grants Commission), Manan Kumar Mishra (Bar Council of India), K Sreenivasarao (Sahitya Akademi), 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).
The 28-member PCI, which was initially set up in 1966 under the Press Council Act 1965 and later re-established in 1979 following the Press Council Act 1978 with the objective to improve the standard of newspapers and news agencies in the billion plus nation, should have 13 individuals representing the professional journalists (out of whom 6 need to be editors of newspapers and 7 working journalists), but those seats remain vacant till date.
The crisis started as many national 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 influences, 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 recognized journalist-unions usually comprise members from different parts of India. 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 overview the functioning of newspapers, periodicals and news agencies only. Rest of all modern technology-driven news outlets remain out of its purview.
Moreover, the PCI has limited power to enforce its guidelines by penalizing print outlets as well their editors and working journalists for the violation.
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 behaviours.
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 as well.