The Press Council of India is a quasi-judicial and autonomous body with two clear mandates:

to protect the freedom of the press and the journalists to monitor the ethics and maintain high standards of journalism

Although it is often seen as ‘toothless’, the PCI has blown the whistle on malpractices in the past. Sometimes it has exceeded the brief by sending poorly informed show-cause notices to journalists and newspapers. At other times, however, such notices were justified.

The PCI has the powers of a civil court, asking people to appear before it. But you are under no obligation to implement any of it. It’s a statutory body with some, we hope, moral authority. Its mandates are worthwhile because we do need some checks on unethical practices, and we do need protection for the press. On Punjab, it took a good stand during the years of militancy in the 1990s.