With no relief to media owners, Bombay High Court hearing adjourns for a week

A July 20 Bombay High Court hearing, conducted on the matter of license fees waive off for the media owners for lockdown period, has been adjourned for a week.

Talking to Media4Growth, one of the media owners (petitioners), Kalpesh Vora, Director of Creation Publicity, said, “We have tried resolving the issue with the corporation directly but the authorities were busy tackling Covid19 cases and did not hear our plea. Hence, we were compelled to go to the court to prevent pile up of license fee and penalty. We are not requesting compensation, but at least, the license fees waive off for the months, starting from April to August, which is quite a reasonable request.”

Although, the hearing didn’t see any major argument or development, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) seems quite adamant in its decision not to waive off the fee for any of the months. 

The court has ordered the corporation not to take any coercive steps against the media owners for non-payment of license fees till further orders. A few media owners have submitted their license fee for July month to the corporation under the ‘protest’ clause which allows them to claim for refund of the payment, if the case is announced in their favour. Otherwise, the corporation will consider it as the license fee.

Also read: 'No provision for license fee waive off’ clarifies Mumbai civic body in an affidavit