Sl. No. F.No.13/294/02-03-PCI
Shri Prabir Kumar Sarkar,
Editor,
COALFIELD TIMES,
Kolkata, West Bengal.
Versus
The Chairman,
Coal India Limited,
Kolkata,
West Bengal.
Complaint
This complaint dated 20.3.2003 has been filed by Shri Prabir Kumar Sarkar, Chief Editor, COALFIELD TIMES, a Bengali weekly published from Kolkata against the Chairman, Coal India Limited, Kolkata alleging arbitrary suspension of release of advertisements.
According to the complainant, through their network of dedicated reporters, they had been able to highlight the plight of the miners and the happenings in the coalfield areas and also exposed high level of corruption prevailing in the coal industry. He stated that they had been unearthing a series of scams in the coal industry where top levels officers were found involved. Some of the reports cited by him are listed below:-
1. Benevolence of some Coal India Officers turns a pauper to prince. (25th November-1st December 2002)
2. Director (Personnel) is the architect of the all-pervading corruption in Coal India Limited.)9th-15th December 2002)
3. Corrupt mechanism of Director (Personnel) has found its way to all the departments of Coal India Limited. (16th –22nd December 2002)
4. Coal India Personnel Department thrives on the making illegal matters legal. (30th December 2002)
5. Allegations of corruption more then Rs.1,000/- crores against Chairman, Coal India Limited. (27th January 2003)
6. High Court order circumvented to save Coal India Chairman. (3rd February 2003)
7. An appeal to the new minister of coal for appointing a Central vigilance agency to investigate into the corrupt activities of the Chairman and Chief General Manager (Personnel), Coal India Limited, to reveal their activities.(10th February 2003)
8. Coal India fleeced of Crores of Rupees by Chairman, middlemen nexus. (17th February 2003)
9. In the game of fraud, deceit and corruption, Chairman, Coal India leads the way for his striker Bhabnath Jha. (24th February 2003)
The complainant submitted that, in view of the large scale unethical and corrupt practices that had been perpetrated by the Chairman, Coal India Limited and his associates in an organisation of national importance, the complainant weekly, as a conscientious mouthpiece of the people, had exposed a series of incidents and events involving gross prejudice and nepotism involving top brass of CIL, including its Chairman himself. He has alleged that as retribution, the Chairman of CIL passed arbitrary orders for stopping all advertisement to the weekly newspaper, by CIL and all its subsidiary companies with a motive to suppress his publication from printing any news that would go against his interest.
Statement in Reply
Comments of the respondent, Chairman, Coal India Limited, Kolkata were invited on 13.8.2003. In response, Dr. Sudeep Ghosh, CGM (CC&PR/Admn.) Coal India Limited, Kolkata filed their statement dated 5.9.2003 and submitted that as a policy, the Coal India Limited had not issued tender/statutory notice to general weeklies for the past several years excepting to specialized tender weeklies like India Trade Journal. He stated that the CIL, which mostly issues Material Management tenders, has a policy for tender/statutory release to “One frontline/established English daily having ABC certified circulation and INS membership, each from the four metropolitan cities; one Hindi daily having INS membership carrying Hindi version of the tender notice, one Government Trade Journal (Statutory) in case of global tenders, published from Delhi. No regional/language dailies are taken.” The subsidiary companies act within this policy to meet their specific and regional requirements. The respondent added that on special occasions like Bengali New Year, Durga Puja etc. the Coal India Limited had issued display advertisements to Coalfield Times as a goodwill measure on the specific request of the complainant. He also stated that there is nothing to substantiate or prove any right nor is there anything by way of evidence to suggest that there has been any arbitrary suspension or discrimination, and the entire allegation regarding suspension of release of advertisement is without substance and is unsustainable in the eye of law. He added that as per guidelines of the Council the CIL has framed a policy which is being uniformly followed, keeping in sight also the practical operational considerations. It was further averred the Coalfield Times has a negligible circulation in coalfield region of Eastern India and advertisements release depends upon maximum reach of the publication balanced with cost control measures as well as credibility of the publication in the chosen region. The CIL denied any arbitrary suspension of advertisement to the complainant paper.
Counter comments
The complainant, who was supplied a copy of the comments by the respondent themselves, filed his counter comments dated 27.9.2003 and submitted that the comments of the respondent had been designed with certain alleged rules and regulations coupled with a deliberate ulterior motive to distort the facts as it suited them, in their bid to thwart the freedom of the Press. He stated that for about last one decade they had been receiving advertisement from the CIL regularly but during about last one year after they published reports, with evidence of the rampant corruption in the matter of purchase, sales etc. by the then Chairman and his stooges, misappropriating thousand of crores of rupees of the national exchequer, the respondent stopped their advertisements abruptly and arbitrarly. The complainant in his further communication dated 26.12.2003 stated that the advertisement policy of Coal India Limited and its subsidiaries is decided at the meeting of the Functional Directors based on DAVP enlistment, circulation, punctuality and readership of the publication and the Coalfield Times fulfilled all this norms. But whenever this weekly exposed matters related to corruption, advertisements were stopped abruptly.
A copy of the counter comments was forwarded to the complainant on 17.10.2003 and 3.2.2004 respectively for information.
Appearance before the Inquiry Committee
The matter came for hearing before the Inquiry Committee at New Delhi on 29.3.2005. Shri Ajit Kumar Sinha, advocate appeared on behalf of the respondent. The complainant, however, had sent a request for adjournment by a day and entered appearance before the Committee on 30.3.2005.
Learned counsel for the respondent submitted that the CIL had resolved the grievance of the complainant by deciding to release the advertisement of CIL and its subsidiaries except of Mahanadi Coal fields Ltd. whose statement was being filed. It was submitted in the written submissions of the Senior Personnel Office (PR) of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited that as per the guidelines of CVC the Company was advertising detailed Tenders/Notices in the website. Only gist of the tender advertisements were published in National and Regional (Orissa) level English/Hindi/Oriya dailies only. As per the Company Advertisement Policy (the then) tender advertisements were being released to the National Weeklies having wide circulation on rotation basis. Coalfield Times was a vernacular (Bengali) weekly, so release of tender advertisement to this newspaper would have been a deviation from the policy.
The Company has recently revised the Advertisement Policy and have adopted cost reduction steps in advertisement expenditure by way of (1) Reduction in Publication Matter, (2) Selection of minimum numbers of required newspapers (3) Stoppage of (additional) publication in Weekly News Papers etc. So it is obvious that no weekly newspaper including Coalfield Times, Kolkatta is getting any tender Advertisement from Mahanadi Coalfields Limited.
Regarding the allegation of Coalfield Times, that Mahanadi Coalfields Limited has stopped release of Advertisements was not true. In 2004-2005, Mahanadi Coalfields Limited had released Good Will Advertisements in Three occasions (1) Anniversary Issue (2) Independence Day Special, (3) Durga Puja issue on the request of Sri Prabir Sarkar, Chief Editor.
The complainant appeared on 30.3.2005 and submitted that though CIL and its subsidiaries were now releasing advertisment to it, Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd. had still not agreed to it. Provided a copy of the written statement filed by MCL, he averred that the advertisment policy had been changed by the company after his protests.
Recommendations of the Inquiry Committee
The Committee noted from the complaint and the oral submissions of the parties that the main grouse of the complainant regarding non-issuance of advertisements to his weekly by CIL had been mitigated to a large extent. Admittedly, Mahandi Coalfields Ltd. has been giving display advertisements to the complainant. As regards the tender advertisements, the committee noted that it was the policy decision of the Company to issue such advertisements to the National Weeklies only which were widely circulated. It cannot be denied that advertisements are released keeping in mind the benefit it would accrue to the advertiser through its reach in the most cost effective manner. However, this is not a largesse extent of the advertiser and selection of the medium has to be guided/determined on merits within the parameters of a defined policy. In the instant case the MCL has been following a clear cut policy in release of its tender advertisements. Hence, the Committee felt that there remained no room for grievance and decided to recommend to the Council to dispose of the complaint with the above observations.
Decision of the Council
The Press Council, on consideration of the records of the case and report of the Inquiry Committee accepts the reasons, findings and the recommendation of the Committee and decides accordingly.