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Ap News:Govt withdraws the order E-mail
The Andhra Pradesh government which issued an order empowering a top official of the Information Department to initiate legal action against newspapers and TV channels that carried “motivated” news to “tarnish the image of the government,” withdrew the order in a hurry late on Thursday night. The Government Order gave permission to the special commissioner, Information and Public Relations, for lodging a complaint and for filing defamation cases through a special public prosecutor. In essence, the order sought to circumvent the existing procedure under which secretaries of respective departments need to get permission from the government to initiate legal action against any publication.

With this GO, the government vested the information commissioner with the power to take legal action in all such cases. The GO came to light on Thursday evening even as the state government was facing criticism from the Opposition and organisations like the Newspaper Editors’ Guild for trying to infringe on press freedom by “targeting” Margadarsi Financiers owned by Eenadu media group with the aim of punishing it for publishing anti-Congress and anti-government reports.
 


However, apparently as a damage control measure, the government withdrew the GO late in the night with the explanation that it had been issued in connectionwith a case of last year.

Meanwhile, the government-appointed committee to probe the Margadarsi affairs has concluded that Margadarsi Financiers did not show any equity or capital of its own invested in their business. The only route for finding capital was loan capital represented by the public deposits raised.

 In addition, the entity used most of its borrowings to repay the earlier borrowings and meeting the current losses without adding to its financial capacity. Margadarsi has about two lakh depositors and raised about Rs 2,610.38 crore over the years, .said the repor.
Meanwhile, for the second day on Friday, the Andhra Pradesh Assembly was adjourned with the Opposition protesting against the government’s attempt to “gag” the media through the GO 938. They also demanded the chief minister’s resignation, alleging that the government’s action had endangered democracy.

However, CM Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said the order was issued without his knowledge and that he had it withdrawn the moment it came to his notice.



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