New Delhi, December 21
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the Centre and the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to respond to a petition seeking to establish the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) as the national standards body for harmonious development of activities related to the television audience measurement services.
Acting on a PIL filed by the Veterans Forum for Transparency in Public Life, a Bench led by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma asked the Union Ministries of Information and Broadcasting; Electronics and Information Technology; Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs; the BIS; BARC and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to spell out their respective stand on the issue in six weeks and posted it for further hearing on April 28 next year.
BARC, a joint industry body founded by stakeholder bodies that represent broadcasters, advertisers and advertising and media agencies, currently collects data on television audience measurement. BARC India claims to own and manage a transparent, accurate and inclusive TV audience measurement system.
Terming the BARC functioning “arbitrary, unscientific, untested and with illegal standards devoid of peer review”, the petitioner sought strict implementation and compliance with the BIS Act, 2016, which provides for the establishment of a national body for developing standards for various processes and services in the field of education, health, advertisements as well as television audience measurement.
A similar petition was earlier disposed of by the High Court with a direction to the Centre to treat it as a representation and take a call on it. The petitioner, however, alleged that the government did not take any action in this regard.
